


Hearts and Souls Are The Same Thing Down Here

by Chlstarr



Series: Ideal Worlds That Should Be in KH3 But Obviously Won't Be [1]
Category: Disney - All Media Types, Kingdom Hearts, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Friendship, Gen, Pacifist Route, Spoilers - Pacifist Route, mild spoilers throughout
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 11:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 51,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5203400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chlstarr/pseuds/Chlstarr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sora and Company end up in the world of Undertale and help Frisk venture through the Underground. Of course their presence seems to make things weirder than usual as Heartless that have never been around pop up and mess with a few things. Not to mention the gang has to get used to this world's version of "fighting" and try to make friends with the Monsters who inhabit the Underground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to the Underground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I blame Undertale and Kingdom Hearts X and III hype these past three months. This is based on fan art that somebody made of a keyblade based on Undertale over on DeviantART, and let's face it, Undertale would totally fit into context with Kingdom Hearts. But of course like everything Kingdom Hearts does in their Disney worlds we have to butcher how the story goes as we insert our trio (and in this case, plus cricket). So expect changes with how the Undertale cast reacts ok? Ok. Now that that's settled. Enjoy the fitting crossover!^.^
> 
> P.s. Sorry this chapter's short, but I didn't want to get into a certain 'heartless flower' mess just yet, if ya know what I mean.
> 
> Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and Sora belong to Square Enix, Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy belong to Disney, and Undertale belongs to Toby Fox.

When Sora awoke, he found himself on a bed of golden flowers. However, he wasn't alone, sure Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy had fallen with him as he heard their groans from behind him, but obviously he had woken up enough first to get a good look at their surroundings. Only to find a younger kid had also fallen flat on the bed of flowers, laying about two feet from him. Upon finally taking in the situation, Sora gasped loudly, eliciting sounds of confusion from his friends behind him. He ignored them for the moment as his kinder nature had taken over with extreme concern for this passed out young kid who wore a blue sweater with purple stripes, and looked to be either eight, nine, or ten.

"Hey! Are you okay? C'mon, wake up, please!" Sora cried out to the kid as he gently nudged them.

"Sora! Leave them be! Just for once we should skitter around the world and find the keyhole without disturbing anything!" Donald spat, literally even as a few flower petals fluttered out of his beak as he spoke. His cold hearted remark was rewarded with a sharp tap on the side of his head from Jiminy's umbrella.

" _Donald Fauntleroy Duck_ , why I'm mighty disappointed in you. Opting to leave a youngin' alone like this, you should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting such a thing."

"Yeah," Goofy piped up to put in his two bits of munny. "We can't just leave 'em here like this, they just might be as new ta this place as we are...That's thuh feelin' I get anyway, judgin' by that hole above us, an' I happened ta see 'em fall down this hole at thuh same time we came ta this world."

"And since when has letting things happen like they should as if _**we**_ didn't exist _ever_ worked Donald?" Sora added as well, still gently nudging the small child. As Donald let out an exasperated sigh at being defeated by a silent unanimous vote on helping the kid, Sora finally felt and heard movement under his hand. "Hey, you're okay! Thank goodness. We were getting really worried there for a second." Well mostly just him, but he wasn't about to tell this kid that.

As soon as Sora finished his sentence the kid registered the sound of his voice, and realized they didn't recognize it, which caused them to have nearly jumped out of their skin, quickly crawling away to better assess the unfamiliar figures around them.

"It's okay, we're not gonna hurt you. We fell down here too. I'm Sora, and this is Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy." Sora said softly in effort to not seem threatening, and promptly gestured to each of his friends.

The kid before them hesitated in doing anything to introduce themselves, frantically looking between each of them and their surroundings, almost as if making sure they were in the right place, before landing their eyes back on the four. They had finally calmed down enough to start signing their introduction.

Jiminy was the one who gasped and hopped over to the kid, landing at their feet, as he recognized this form of communication. "Whoa, slow down there little fella. Now I'm a bit rusty on sign language, but I still know a few things. Uh, start again please." The child breathed through their nose with a small huff, and started again, just giving the basic letters of their name, while Jiminy interpreted aloud. "F-R-I-S-K. So your name's Frisk! Nice ta meet'chya!" The trio behind him chirped "nice to meet you" in unison as well.

"How about we get out of here together?" Sora pipped up.

Frisk hesitated only to look between the four of them again, but finally nodded with a small smile. This was going to be an interesting pacifist run. Frisk then stood up and brushed the flower petals off of their pants before waving for the others to follow them deeper into the cavern. It didn't go unnoticed that they seemed to know where they were going.

"New here like us, huh?" Donald muttered to Goofy as soon as Frisk ran out of ear shot.

"Well that way seems ta be the only exit." Goofy shrugged. Donald actually did a double take and found that the Goof was right, that was the only corridor, and it would be impossible for anyone to climb back up. The duck sighed in defeat again and trudged along behind the group. His gut instinct had always been constantly repressed on these adventures, but if his friends insisted to ignore all the signs that something was weird about the kid and this world, it was their own darn fault.


	2. Never Trusting Flowers With Faces Ever Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was very tempted to make Flowey a Heartless but instead, he gets pushed away by one.

At the end of the corridor was a dark open door, the group all went through and ended up in a room with a single golden flower that had a face.

"Howdy! I'm Flowey. Flowey the flower! Hmm…this is new…" Flowey trailed off skeptically as he took in the new group behind the small child. But he perked right back up as he continued. "I mean, you're all new to the Underground, aren'tchya? Golly, you all must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here! I guess little old me will have to do. Ready? Here we go!"

With that, the entire area of perspective changed for them. Donald and Jiminy instantly didn't trust this flower, so Jiminy hid under Donald's hat for the time being. Well at least the cricket was relating to the duck's gut instincts. In any case, it got darker in the eyes of the group, but for some reason things only affected Frisk and Sora, as their hearts floated out and into this dark box with white walls surrounding them. Frisk and Sora's hearts were both red and moving freely in the box. Though Sora's heart was bigger by a few inches and had orange curly-cues inside and at the top of it. Donald and Goofy both thought it was a little weird that they were somehow left out of the whole thing, but both silently thought that it was just a human thing to deal with, seeing as both Frisk and Sora were humans.

"See those hearts? Those are your respective Souls, the very culmination of your beings! Your Soul starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV." Flowey explained cheerfully, briefly glancing down and nervously noticed that Sora's LV was already capped off at twenty, to Frisk's one. The Flower knew he shouldn't be all that surprised given that the older boy was probably from another world since he's never seen him and his friends in any of the timelines, and thankfully the teenager didn't know what he was doing. However, the younger one did most likely, he could tell just by that look of determination on their face, ready to show their new friend the ropes of the Underground at a moment's notice. Still, Flowey continued without skipping a beat in order to keep up his façade for now. "Wanna know what LV stands for? Why, LOVE, of course! You want some LOVE, don't you? Don't worry I'll share some with you!" Flowey winked, and magically produced a few seeds, floating them above his head for now to keep the 'trust' flowing. "Down here LOVE is shared through…little white…'friendliness pellets'." Flowey couldn't help but over emphasize the phrase 'friendliness pellets' in his sickly sweet tone. Donald caught onto it in an instant but found himself unable to say anything for some reason. "Are you ready? Move around! Get as many as you can!" The flower then slowly let the pellets drift towards the hearts, to still keep the trust going.

However, he was right to assume the small child remembered everything from a past timeline as the small heart pushed the bigger heart out of the way of all the pellets. Sora wanted to call out on his new friend but found he couldn't talk at the moment either, and immediately thought this perspective of fighting sure was weird.

"Hey, buddies. You missed all of them. Let's try again okay?" Flowey deadpanned, though he still kept up appearances for the time being by keeping this stupid smile plastered on his face, regardless that his eyes were giving him away. Thus, he slowly threw another round of pellets at the two hearts. Again Frisk pushed Sora's heart out of the way, regardless of seeing their friend's heightened LV and knowing Sora could take the hit. He didn't seem like a bad person after all, no reason to judge just yet anyway. "Is this a joke?" Flowey spat, breaking the cheerful and friendly character. "Are you braindead? RUN. INTO. THE. ~~BULLETS!~~ Friendliness pellets." How he managed to autocorrect himself in the middle of speaking no one will ever know, but at this point Donald was screaming in quacks for the two to get out of there, run for it anything, but in vain as he still wasn't heard. Flowey threw another round of pellets at the two hearts, and this time Sora had finally caught on that something wasn't right with this flower and followed Frisk's lead, avoiding the pellets as freely as Frisk did. Frisk moved their heart up and down a little to show how proud they were of their older friend.

Meanwhile, Flowey relented to showing his true colors, morphing his face to look exceptionally creepy with little fangs poking out, and even his voice sounded creepy when he spoke. " _You know what's going on here don't you? You just wanted to see me suffer._ " With that, Flowey surrounded the two hearts with a circle barrage of pellets. " **DIE!** " Flowey shouted even more furiously before laughing evilly and creepily, slowly closing the circle of pellets in on the two hearts. Frisk knew nothing would happen when the pellets hit them, but with the arrival of their new friends, nothing was going to happen like usual. Thus, the pellets didn't even get very close before Flowey's magic was disrupted by being hit earlier than usual, but not by a fireball. Instead a dark claw swiped Flowey away very easily, and things suddenly fell back into normal perspective again.

Sora gasped upon realizing what it was that knocked Flowey away like a small bag of potatoes, it was a simple Shadow Heartless, but there were four more quickly approaching. "Frisk! Go hide somewhere safe, Donald, Goofy and I can handle this!" Sora called out to his new little friend, as he instinctively summoned his Keyblade, the Metal Chocobo was his favorite at the moment. Thankfully, Frisk obeyed, mostly because they didn't recognize these creatures, nor the weapon in Sora's hand, but ran back into the previous room they were all in, not wanting to face a certain motherly goat monster just yet, not without their new friends anyway. Still, Frisk watched the trio fight the dark creatures from the doorway, in awe. Sora and the others defeated the Heartless easily, and even laughed at their banter as they fought the dark creatures.

"That was really creepy!" Donald shouted as he blasted a Fira at a Shadow that was too close for comfort. "Now I'm never gonna trust talking flowers ever again, and probably have nightmares about it too!"

"He sure seemed nice at first!" Goofy piped up bashing a nearby heartless with his shield. "But I guess he was somewhat of an actor to hide all that darkness inside 'im."

"No kidding, I didn't think it was possible to go from nice to mean that quickly!" Sora added as he finished off the last remaining three heartless without much effort.

"It just goes ta show, that not everybody can be trusted right away. Best to keep your guard up most of the time and see what they do, then let your guard down if everything checks out okay." Jiminy finished, poking out of Donald's hat as soon as the Duck stopped moving from fighting.

Frisk came running back into the room and hugged Sora's legs. Surprised by the gesture, Sora dissolved the Keyblade in his hand, and slowly knelt down to return the hug.

"Hey, buddy. Sorry if we worried you, but we're okay. Right guys?" Sora said gently, then looked up to his friends for support.

"Yeah!" The trio of anthropomorphics replied cheerfully in unison. Donald was the one to continue the sentence quite simply with a shrug. "We're used to this sort of thing."

Frisk smiled at all of them, but then gasped upon remembering the original turn of events that should've happened. They looked to the door to the next room, not the one they all came from, and looked at it worriedly. _**She** should've been here by now_ …If there were more of those things, those heartless monsters that Frisk had noticed didn't have souls, then there was a chance that **_she_** was in danger. Thinking quickly, Frisk turned to Jiminy, who was still atop Donald's head, and started signing, trying to keep it slow for the cricket to understand, though they really wanted to get the message across quicker. "Oh, dear…" Jiminy muttered worriedly.

"What's Frisk saying Jiminy?" Goofy asked.

"Frisk says there's someone who should've been here by now and might be in trouble if there are more Heartless around." Jiminy replied solemly. "Oh my!" Came a feminine voice from the door that Frisk was looking forlornly at. The whole group whipped their heads around in the direction of the voice and found a tall goat lady standing there taking in the sight of them. Frisk let out a huge sigh of relief, wiping their forehead for emphasis and the four older friends silently came to the conclusion that this was the someone Frisk was worried about, and was further confirmed when Frisk signed, "Nevermind."

"Ah, do not be frightened my children. I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins. I pass through this place every day to see if anyone has fallen down." She explained in a gentle voice. Then she addressed Frisk and Sora directly for her next sentence. "You two are the first humans to come here in a long time." Then she directed her attention to the others and verbally realized that she didn't know their names.

"I'm Sora, and this is Frisk."

"My name's Goofy!"

"I'm Donald Duck, Ma'm."

"Jiminy Cricket at your service!"

"Oh, it's so lovely to meet you all!" Toriel replied giddily. "Come! I will guide you through the catacombs! This way!" She said as she promptly headed toward the door that was ahead.

The group of five hung back a bit, as Donald had one last thing to ask the youngest among them. "Hey, Frisk, we can trust her, right? I don't want a repeat of that creepy flower incident." Donald asked and explained his reason behind the question. Frisk nodded with a smile and they gave two thumbs up for emphasis that Toriel was safe to trust wholeheartedly. The others sighed in relief and promptly followed Toriel through the door up ahead.


	3. Home and Heartache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bring out all your comfort objects people, 'cause we're in for a sad ride of the one thing you always regret doing! No, not accidentally kill Toriel, this is a pacifist run!  
> Oh, and this does take place during KHIII in case you were wondering.  
> And I am covering everything within Undertale...except Gaster...He's too much of a mystery to me to work in anywhere. So be wary of mild spoilers,'k? Alright. Enjoy!^.^

Frisk, Sora, and the others soon entered what could only be affectionately called the front lobby of the Ruins. As leaves were scattered quite evenly on either side of the path, leading to a set of two staircases that both led to a single doorway. In the cranny between the staircases was a big pile of leaves, and in front of it were familiar sights to both of the humans. A moving, star-like thing for Frisk, and a glowing flat green disc on the ground for Sora and his brood. Their respective SAVE points. They both silently decided now was as good a time as any to Save.  ** _The shadow of the Ruins loomed above and filled them all with determination_** , regardless of whether Sora and his party realized it or not.

With that side business taken care of, they followed Toriel up the stairs and into the door at the top. Inside they found themselves in a small room with switches on the ground and one on the wall. They were obviously connected to the spikes that blocked the door up ahead. However there were six switches in total –seven, counting the wall one- so there had to be either a pattern to them or only one of them was the correct one before you had to hit the switch on the wall.

"Welcome to your new home, innocent ones. Allow me to educate you in the operation of the Ruins." Toriel told them, and then promptly walked over the correct switches as well and flipped the switch on the wall. "The Ruins are full of puzzles. Ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. One must solve them to move from room to room. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them." She explained before continuing on through the newly opened door.

It honestly took every ounce of will power in Donald's body to not smack his palm into his face loud enough for her to hear it. That doesn't mean he didn't manage to mutter "You've gotta be kidding," which was loud enough for the others to hear. Frisk, Sora and Goofy cringed, but once again Donald was reprimanded by Jiminy, with another whack from his tiny umbrella, though this time from the top of his head, as that was where Jiminy was still perched.

"Now, now Donald, this is something we're gonna hafta grin and bear. She's definitely a motherly figure… that much is obvious. But let's not forget she hasn't seen people in a long time, and probably doesn't know our intelligence." Jiminy chastised the duck gently. Frisk, even nodded to agree with the cricket as confirmation of his little theory.

Donald grumbled, but thought about it. If she hadn't seen people in a long time, then who knows how her sanity could check out in the end. She could be even crazier than that flower! If anyone was going to keep their guard up, it might as well be him. Since lately, one just never knows the outcome of anything in these worlds these days.

"Gawrsh! That's a weird sign." Goofy piped up, pointing out the sign on the wall on the adjacent side of the door from the wall switch.

The sign read, " **Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not on the middle road.** "

"Wonder what that could mean?" Sora pondered aloud. "Any ideas Frisk?" He asked his little friend, making sure to always include them in everything as much as possible. However, Frisk merely shrugged and made a face that showed that they really had no idea. In truth, they never did figure out the meaning of that sign, but they did have an idea, something about choices and how there isn't really a neutral side to things. But even that could be wrong. As maybe it meant that bravery and determination were not the same thing. Just as bravery and courage weren't the same thing either.

"Hey, I think I figured it out!" Goofy quipped. "That sign's supposed tuh be taken literally. 'Cause Toriel didn't step on these middle buttons."

"Would ya look at that." Jiminy mused aloud.

"Good find Goofy!" Sora cheered.

Fisk gave two thumbs up after looking where Goofy was pointing and finally noticing for the first time that there was a little bit of a cobble stone path underneath the middle buttons. Goofy was right, the sign was supposed to be taken literally to these buttons.

Donald grumbled non kid friendly words under his breath, but he silenced his offending tongue when the others turned to look at him and felt Jiminy's umbrella  _gently_  tap him from above this time. With the sudden need to defend himself Donald couldn't help but declare. "Well it wouldn'tve killed her to let us trial and error it to figure it out."

No one took notice that Frisk winced slightly upon that statement.

"Aw, Donald, she's just bein' a good Momma. She'll probably ease us into solving puzzles on our own." Goofy told him as a matter-of-factly. Frisk even confirmed it by nodding at Donald.

"Fine, whatever." Donald huffed.

Continuing on, the group found themselves in a much bigger room. It wasn't really big in height but it was a long room, and it had water and a couple of small bridges. Once again, Toriel greeted them with more easy-peasy instructions. "To make progress here, you will need to trigger several switches. Do not worry, I have labeled the ones that you need to flip." And off she went, but not too far as she stopped in the middle of the path, in between the segments of walkway that led to the two labeled switches.

Again, Donald really wanted to smack his hand to his face but he resisted because he wasn't in the mood to be smacked upside the head by Jiminy's umbrella again. Not that the tiny thing hurt, but it was a nuisance.

Since her fascination rested on the humans mostly, there was a silent, unanimous agreement that Frisk and Sora would do the puzzles Toriel requested of them. They were easy enough, she labeled the switches in yellow chalk. Though Sora, who got the furthest one to flip, did inspect the other switch out of curiosity, only to find that it was broken anyway. So he flipped the switch he was supposed to, and he and Frisk were given praises from Toriel.

"Splendid! I am proud of you, little ones. Let us move to the next room." With that, she and the others moved on to the next room, where there wasn't anything but a dummy and of course another door, but at least that door was open. Except that she blocked it. "As humans living in the Underground, monsters may attack you. So you will need to be prepared for this situation. However worry not, the process is simple. When you encounter a monster, you will enter a Fight. While you are in a Fight, strike up a friendly conversation. Stall for time, I will come to resolve the conflict. Please practice talking to the dummy."

Sora thought it was odd that monsters needed a talking to instead of fighting it out, but he supposed that not everything could be solved with violence, which was a nice change from bashing Heartless all day. So he and Frisk inspected the dummy, and their perspective changed again like it did when Flowey introduced this floating heart surrounded by white walls thing. Only this time there were options, but since they weren't being attacked by white things, their hearts floated together over the options. They could choose between Fight, Act, Items and Mercy. Frisk took control over their seemingly conjoined-for-the-moment hearts and checked the Items, and surprisingly there in the Items option were Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy's names, each in their own slot of inventory. Evidently in this type of a Fight, the trio were reusable "items" of sorts. Frisk kept it in mind for now and backed out of it, and hit the Act, option. Since Frisk seemed to know what they were doing, Sora let them do what they needed and merely observed. Which was just as well, for as soon as Frisk tried to communicate with the dummy, it was obviously not one for conversation. Toriel seemed happy and then looked to Sora expectantly. He guessed he just needed to say  _something_ , and complimented its cotton. This made Toriel gush with joy about how good they were, and thus the group found themselves once again back in normal perspective, as Toriel went ahead into the next room.

"Ahyuck! That tickled!" Goofy chuckled as soon as he Donald and Jiminy were out of that weird perspective.

"If that's how it's gonna be for us for the rest of this adventure, I'm not sure I'll ever get used to it." Donald added.

"Well it certainly is somethin'." Jiminy quipped.

"Aw, I'm sure we'll get used to it, right Frisk?" Sora said cheerfully in his laid back way, putting his hands behind his head, and looked to his small friend. Well, Frisk was pretty short, so it really was hard to distinguish their age, but they were about as tall as Donald.

Frisk's demure smile didn't go entirely unnoticed, as Donald was still keeping his guard up. However, as they started signing to Jiminy, the cricket realized even as he translated that there was more to this kid than meets the eye, as apparently it does take some getting used to, but that conversation with the dummy was what one is supposed to do in order to make nice-nice with the monsters around here. Frisk even explained that 'monsters' around here  _ **did not**_  include the Heartless. They had never seen such creatures before.

However, before Frisk could sign anything more, Toriel called for them, but Frisk quickly signed that they would be able to talk more later.

As, they entered the next room, Toriel pondered aloud if they'd be able to solve this next puzzle. This time she only went a little bit ahead, making sure the group followed behind her. The gang suddenly encountered a Froggit as they turned a corner and merely checked it, before Toriel scared it away with a stern look in her eye. The group, and especially Donald, then knew better than to mess with Mama Goat.

With the Froggit scared away, they continued on, past a sign that said something about the western room being the eastern room's blueprint, before coming to a bridge surrounded by shallow water, the bridge had spikes all over it.

"Well, this is the puzzle but…" Toriel trailed off with some unease before coming up with an idea. "Here, take my hand a moment, little one. Sora, you take their free hand, and follow my lead. As for the rest of you-!" Before she looked up or could even finish, she heard a couple of splashes from either side of the bridge, and looked to find Donald and Goofy, totally breaking the puzzle all together by simply wading in the water to get around the spikes.

"Sorry, but we're taking a short cut!" Donald shouted over his shoulder. Jiminy shrugged from atop Donald's head at her and added, "Well, I wouldn't test my luck on those spikes either if I was their size."

Behind her, Toriel heard two soft clunks, and looked to find Sora taking off his shoes. His shoes were the only things that kept the usual black and yellow theme throughout all of his outfits from his adventures, even in most of the dream worlds for the Mark of Mastery exam. Though for his current outfit, his shoes  _almost_  clashed, if it weren't for various buttons all over his outfit and the two little belts that held his gauntlets to his wrists.

"C'mon, Frisk! You can get on my shoulders." Sora suggested as he knelt down enough for the kid to climb on. Once Frisk was all aboard and secured themselves by holding onto two tufts of Sora's spiky hair, Sora secured their legs with his arms, with a shoe in each hand, and slowly stood up. "Don't worry Toriel, I grew up near an ocean, a little water never hurt anyone." He told her cheerfully and followed the direction Donald went and waded through the water towards the other end of the room, with Frisk silently chuckling on his shoulders.

The puzzle of the spikes was extremely simple but could easily be missed if one wasn't paying attention. Upon first entering the room the cobblestone path took a specific aspect of directions, upon coming to the spikes, Toriel would usually lead one in that exact direction of the cobble stones in the adjacent room, hence the sign in between. However, despite Toriel's best efforts to make those spikes come off as a dangerous puzzle even after usually being led through it by her, there was never any danger in the first place. The spikes were fake, and could be stepped on without fear of injury or error. And Frisk couldn't help but laugh that these strange new friends of theirs broke the already broken puzzle even further by thinking outside the box, almost quite literally.

Toriel was stunned to say the least, the look on her face was another reason Frisk was laughing so hard. They hadn't seen her look that stunned stupid since the timeline they chose the Fight option on the dummy but never made any moves to actually attack it, until it just floated away. The look on Toriel's face was priceless then and even now. It actually took a few moments for her to get her bearings and continue on the puzzle alone, still mystified by their ingenuity. By the time she made it to the other side, Sora's feet had dried up enough to put his shoes back on, and let Frisk safely down and off of his shoulders.

They all looked sheepishly at her as she came up to them. "Well, in the next room I was going to test your independence, but that would be pointless seeing as you're all sticking together through thick and thin it seems. I'm very glad for that actually. The more, the merrier." Toriel admitted as they all walked through the door together.

Of course, all differences have to be made somewhere because of our little quartet that does not belong in this world, and this is one of them. In this room which was just a really long corridor of a room, was usually empty and Toriel used it as a test of independence to let a human walk on their own from one end of the room to the other which takes roughly twenty-six seconds of walking. Now it was filled to the brim with Heartless.

"More heartless? And this room looks even bigger than the throne room in Disney Castle!" Sora couldn't help but complain aloud, as he summoned his Keyblade. This time it wasn't just Shadow Heartless, but also a ton of Soldiers and Large Bodies as well as a few new Heartless that either looked like a pile of leaves, or like Flowey.

Before Sora, Donald, and Goofy could even leap into the fray, and quickly tell Toriel to get Frisk somewhere safe, a wall of fire that went all the way up to the ceiling and to the other walls had materialized in front of them, and slowly pushed into all the Heartless, demolishing each and every last one. The natural born Heartless poofed into dark smoke and the man made one's poofed into dark smoke and hearts that floated away and disappeared back to Kingdom Hearts itself.  _Not that to this day, anyone knows for sure just what Kingdom Hearts is just yet…but_ still.

"You didn't do that, did you Donald?" Sora asked his water fowl companion curiously.

"Uh-uh, you?" Donald asked back, just as confused.

"Well, I think Miss Toriel's got more up her sleeve than we thought." Goofy quipped.

"What make you say that Goofy?" Sora asked, turning around to face his friend only to find that Goofy was looking in Toriel's direction in awe. Following his friend's gaze, he gasped and jumped back a bit to see that Goofy was right, as Toriel had a little bit of fire magic crackling out her fingers of her out stretched hand.

At the shocked gasp from Sora and the shocked and panicked expression on his face from what she could see at the corner of her eye, she diffused the magic and lowered her hand. "So those things are called Heartless, correct?" She suddenly asked in a low solemn tone, not daring to look in their direction for the time being.

"That's right, but unlike the local monsters down here, they don't have any intelligence, only instinct. And that instinct drives them ta tear out folks' hearts, and by extension, their souls I guess, no matter whose it is, but  _mostly_  if they have even a sliver of darkness in them." Jiminy answered her. He didn't know why but he felt a strong, regal vibe come from her when she used her magic and spoke just now.

"I see…" She replied in a solemn tone once more. Then she took a deep breath and put on a gentle smile. "Well then, I actually have something I must attend to quickly, so I must leave you for a while. Please remain here. It's dangerous to explore by yourselves." She warned through her teeth. Then her face genuinely lit up as she continued. "I have an idea. I will give you a Cell Phone. If you have a need for anything just call. Be good, alright?" She said as she handed the Cell Phone to Frisk, before walking away towards the other end of the room and disappeared through the door.

"Is it just me or did she suddenly feel like royalty fer a moment?" Goofy asked out of the blue.

"No, I felt it too. I thought I was the only one." Jiminy pipped up. "I wouldn't be surprised if she were a Queen, or had been once. Not much of a kingdom down here so far." Then the cricket gasped in surprise, as he caught sight of Frisk heading for the other end of the room, and quickly hopped off of Donald's head and jumped onto Frisk's shoulder to try and talk some sense into them, his old job from being Pinocchio's conscience was kicking in. "Frisk, I'm shocked at you. We really should stay here like Toriel said! An' besides, Sora and the others can protect you in case more Heartless show up."

Frisk gently lifted Jiminy off of their shoulder and put him on the ground so they could be understood better by signing. They signed vigorously for a while and Jiminy kept silent for once, nodding at the one sided conversation when it was appropriate.

"And you're absolutely sure about this?" Jiminy eventually asked once Frisk's signing died down a bit. Frisk nodded, and the cricket let out a relenting sigh as he hopped back on to Frisk's shoulder. "Well alright, if you're so sure. I'm gonna hafta tell it back to them now, 'cause it is kinda important. An' besides, we might as well tell you our story since you're finally willing to tell us yours."

Frisk nodded with a smile. It was a fair trade.

"What'd they say?" Sora asked, trying to hide the worriedness in his voice.

"Quite a bit actually. Now, have a seat fellas this is quite a long story and is as hard to grasp as our adventures as a whole if we were to tell them to some complete stranger." Jiminy replied, then just barely caught himself and glanced at the child behind him as he mostly faced the others. "Uh, no offense Frisk." Frisk was very understanding and smiled while shaking their head to show that no offense had been taken.

So Jiminy continued, and explained the whole of this world. That this Underground was inside a mountain known as Mt. Ebott, and the small legend behind it that long ago, Monsters and Humans ruled this world, until one day they were suddenly at war with each other. The humans won and sealed the monsters underground with a magic spell. As the years went by silly legends started to be spread that if someone were to climb Mt. Ebott, they would never return. Frisk was wise enough not to mention how the spell was to be broken, there was no need to give that much information all at once, they'd find out by the time they got to Waterfall anyway. That aside, Frisk was a time traveler of sorts, and had already been through all of the Underground many times. However, Heartless had never appeared before now (to Frisk's knowledge), and neither had Sora and company. This was all playing out similarly to how it usually goes, but otherwise is completely new and different.

In turn, the gang explained to Frisk that they were from other worlds, and unfortunately the Heartless were after the light the Keyblade brought and the light in heart of the world, but they would also always attack anyone with darkness in their hearts, but mostly the Keyblade bearer because they were scared of the Keyblade itself. They also explained that they were also looking for a keyhole, which usually hid inside a magical object, which also usually housed the heart of the world. At the mention of that informational tidbit, Frisk signed to them that they had an idea of where it might be, but it was all the way at the end of the Underground, and it would take a while to get there. Though Donald groaned, they were all okay with that, for at least for once they had an idea of where it would be. Then of course, they explained why it was so important for them to be here and find the keyhole. If they didn't, then eventually this world would be consumed by darkness and disappear from existence. That's what happened to the majority of Jiminy's world, and all that's left of it is a giant whale named Monstro and the inside of his enormous stomach, just out there floating in space. Thus, Jiminy eventually came to Donald and Goofy's world and became the chronicler of their adventures with Sora thus far.

Sora even explained that his world was swallowed up by darkness for a while, and ended up in another world called Traverse Town, a world that seemed to be the default for anyone to end up in if their world got swallowed up by darkness, but only if you were lucky enough to survive it in the first place. All darkness usually goes somewhere, and that somewhere was behind the Door to Darkness in the Realm of Darkness, and its and endless labyrinth of despair, darkness, nothingness and natural born Heartless, the ones without the emblems.

"Woah there Sora, isn't that telling them too much?" Donald asked, hoping to stop the conversation from getting too dark for the small child.

"Well, they need to know what happens…But I guess you're right." Sora replied and scratched the back of his head with slight embarrassment. But then he had an afterthought. "But if you do ever end up in Traverse Town for whatever reason, find a guy named Cid, he'll help you get your bearings for a while, and remember to support the local Moogle merchants, they're helpful too."

Frisk wasn't really sure what they would do with all that information. They promised themselves and a certain skeleton that this would be the last run through the Underground, no more Resets. And now, it seemed that resetting wasn't going to be an option anyway if darkness was close enough to swallow up the world, if they dared to reset after all this, Sora and his friends' efforts would probably have been for naught. They couldn't let that happen, and they refused to let it happen, no matter what Chara would try.

With all the facts on the table, they finally decided to get a move on as soon as Frisk explained that Toriel wasn't going to return anytime soon, and would be finished with whatever it was she was busy with by the time they got there. Though, with Heartless added to the equation, they couldn't guarantee that she'd be perfectly alright even if it was obvious that she could take care of herself if things got dire.

Thankfully however, she called the Cell Phone as predestined as soon as they walked into the next room with a Froggit off to the side and another set of save points in a pile of leaves. She had called to ask if they had left the room, which the gang all sweated nervously at, though she thankfully continued and mentioned in her over worriedness that there were more puzzles up ahead that she hadn't explained and reiterated that it was best not to continue exploring until she returned, finishing off with another motherly "be good, alright?"

When she hung up, they saved, ** _playfully crinkling through the leaves filled them with determination_**. Then Frisk led them to the room that was off to the left and showed them the candy bowl that had a sign that said 'take one', so they got a piece for each of them. Though Frisk frantically signed to Jiminy to translate that it was best not to take them too quickly or else the bowl would fall over. Well, Sora was much taller than Frisk, so he got a piece for each of them without tipping the bowl with ease. The candy had a distinct, non-licorice flavor.

They all then left the candy bowl room and talked to the Froggit who suggested to give Mercy after  _acting_  a certain way towards monsters when they encountered them. Continuing on they bumped into a Whimsun, and tried to console it, but halfway through the first word of the sentence it burst into tears and ran away, so they continued on their way. They came to a room that had obvious cracks on the ground, it was technically a puzzle, but Sora and the others had the uncanny ability to think outside the box, thus Sora picked up Frisk and held them bridal style as he and the others jumped over the cracks and continued onto the next room. Here, Toriel called again and asked if they preferred cinnamon or butterscotch, needless to say the vote was split. Donald and Jiminy preferred cinnamon, while Sora and Goofy preferred butterscotch, though Frisk also said butterscotch as the tie breaker since in the last timeline they said cinnamon. After Toriel hung up, they took one more step into the room and she called again to ask if it wasn't that they detested their opposite choices, she knows their preferences, but would they turn up their noses if they found it on their plate? The communicative gang unanimously said no and that they could easily eat anything. She thanked them for their answer and their patience and hung up again.

"She's not gonna call again if we take another step is she? I mean I understand being over protective to an extent, but even I know kids need room to grow on their own, and I'm only an Uncle of three!" Donald complained.

"Aw, she'll always be worried, that never goes away no matter how old yer kiddos get." Goofy replied, speaking from experience. "I worry about my Maxie all the time, even if he is old enough ta take care of 'imself. He'd get along well with you Sora, an' you too, Frisk!"

"If we do run into him, maybe we can go to a Powerline concert." Donald couldn't help but quip. Goofy caught the duck's joke from all the way back when Max was just a teenager and chuckled in his signature laugh, which was contagious enough to make Sora, Frisk, and Jiminy laugh even though they didn't know what they were laughing about.

"I wouldn't mind meeting him if we do run into him." Sora said off handedly once their chuckles died down.

"Certainly! I'd sure like that!" Goofy replied cheerfully.

Frisk smiled through the whole conversation between them, they could relate because they knew Toriel's story very well and she did have a good reason to be a worrywart, but it was for the best to not to tell their friends that sad tale, it was better for them to find out when the time came. After all, what's life without surprises?

Moving right along, the puzzle in this room was easy, they simply moved the rock over the pressure plate switch, but they did take note of the sign on the wall that said three of the four rocks be pushed. Just as they were about to leave, Toriel called again and asked if any of them had any allergies*. They all looked at each other with perplexed faces, even Frisk was confused having never gotten that phone call from her before, but they went through the rounds of each person silently shaking their heads of not having any known allergies, and then they all replied 'no' into the speaker end. Goofy wondered aloud as to why she was asking, but she didn't really elaborate and said "No reason, no reason at all..."and promptly hung up.

"Kids these days have all sorts of allergies, from peanut butter to cinnamon, but since cinnamon is out of the question it could be dust that she's referring to." Donald said to ease Goofy's confusion, while nobody noticed that Frisk flinched at the word 'dust'. Everyone else nodded their heads in understanding, so they moved on.

In the next room Sora broke the puzzle again by carrying Frisk and jumping over all the cracks on the ground, but they had to wait a bit as Donald and Goofy decided to actually do the puzzle and instantly fell into their own holes. When they reemerged from the direction they came from (from Sora's perspective) the two humans and the cricket heard Donald mutter in admiration how clever this puzzle was, and watched as he and Goofy carefully took their time testing the ground and retracting their respective testing feet if a fissure formed as they carefully figured out the path they had seen in the floor below. They made it through in due time, and in the next room it was evident what the sign in the single rock room was talking about as here there were three rocks. Two of them were easily moved onto the corresponding switches, but the last one was sentient and needed to be asked to stay put after they asked it to move a few times just to get it on the switch.

Within the next room was a mouse hole nearby an old piece of cheese on a table, the cheese was so old that it was stuck to the table, and there were save points, so they saved again. ** _Knowing the mouse might one day leave its hole and get the cheese…It filled them all with determination_**.

Moving on into the next room they came across an interesting sight. There were a few Heartless, all looking like piles of leaves, (they didn't have emblems so they were pureblood Heartless), harassing a ghost…a very timid but polite ghost that kept saying sorry each time a…Leafpile Heartless lashed out at the ghost.

"Hey! Sit tight we'll get those things away from you!" Sora called out as he summoned his keyblade. Luckily there were only three Leafpile Heartless, so this would be an easy fix as Sora came up with a plan. "Now please close your eyes and don't move okay?"

"O-o-okay, I guess…I'll close my eyes for a bit." The timid ghost said as he complied.

As soon as the ghost's eyes were closed, both Donald and Sora threw Firas at the Leafpiles. It only took two Firas to dispatch each of them, easy pickings.

"Okay, you can open yer eyes now!" Goofy called out. The ghost did as he was told because he didn't want to be rude and looked around to find that the Heartless were gone.

"Oh, those weird things are gone. Thanks, I guess. My name's Napstablook by the way. Wanna see something cool?" Napstablook promptly cried and made his tears fly up and form a top hat. "I call it Dapper Blook."

"Hey, that's pretty good!"

"Ayhuck! That sure looks spiffy!"

"It looks great on you!"

"Couldn't've worn it better myself!"

Two thumbs up from Frisk.

"Oh, gee…" Napstablook said in awe as happy tears started welling up in his eyes. "I usually come to the Ruins because there's nobody around…but then those things tried to bully me but then somebody nice saved me…Oh, I'm rambling again…I'll get out of your way." With that, he vanished into thin air.

So the group continued, Frisk made sure to get a spider donut from the spider bake sale in the room straight ahead before the others went to the upper left room. Toriel called one last time to mention how it had been a while since she cleaned up the house and the Ruins themselves, and since they arrived so suddenly she was a bit unprepared, and since there were things lying about the Ruins, they were free to pick them up, but warned not to carry too much as one never knows when they'll find something they really like, and then she hung up. Every now and then they'd come across a monster and do their best to make friendly acquaintances with them be they wiggling their hips and having meaningful conversations with Moldsmals, sparing other monsters before getting to spare the hivemind Migosp, eating their greens from Vegetoids, and making sure that Loox knew they had no intention to bully them. All while they solved puzzle after puzzle, marveling with a one long noted whistle at the perspective puzzle, and figuring out that Donald, Goofy and Jiminy had their own unique uses as "Items". Donald was the reusable healer but needed time to regenerate his Cura use meter before the magic could be used again. Goofy was capeable of making monsters laugh at his clumsy antics so that helped speed up the sparing process, and Jiminy was an extra tattle, in case one needed an extra hint on how to please a monster enough to spare them quickly. At one point they ran into Napstablook again as he had fallen down a hole of one of the puzzles, claiming that he couldn't get up and then realized a little too late that he could just fly because he was a ghost, and shortly vanished again.

As they moseyed along they fought the occasional Heartless that wandered into their path, and found a faded ribbon down a hole that strangely had a name engraved in it that Frisk had never noticed before, Strelitzia. They recognized the name as the scientific term for a Bird of Paradise, but since it was engraved on the ribbon, they assumed it was the name of a girl, but they thought nothing else of it though there was a newfound sadness about it that Frisk hadn't felt since the first time they realized what happened to the owners of these discarded objects.

In any case, they couldn't dwell on it so they and the rest of the gang continued on after Frisk equipped the ribbon and they found a toy knife near a balcony that overlooked more very abandoned ruins, it also bore a name that Frisk didn't recognize or notice before, that of Lauriam, there was a strange sadness Frisk could feel from the ribbon suddenly, and a strange darkness from the toy knife, and then it was gone, as if a passing and forgotten again memory had been on and jumped off of a train of thought. Regardless, they and the others had to keep moving on, so Frisk equipped the toy knife but kept the stick and band aid they already had on them, until finally they came into Toriel's front yard which they guessed because they saw a house just beyond a cinnamon tree. Speaking of the worrywart goat Mom, they watched her as she came out of the house, muttering about how whatever she was doing took longer than she thought, and hadn't noticed them yet even when she stood by the tree and dialed her Cell Phone. One ring was all it took since she heard the receiving end's ring and had looked up at the same time to finally notice them all.

"How did you get here, my children? Are you hurt?" Toriel asked worriedly as she looked Frisk and Sora over, they had forgotten to have Donald heal them, and Sora didn't have a Cura in his magic slots yet. "There, there, I will heal you. I should have not left you alone for so long. It was irresponsible to try to surprise you like this. Err…Well, I suppose I cannot hide it any longer. Come small ones!" She cooed soothingly, and was surprised at herself for giving her surprise by mention away. Then she walked towards the house. Sora didn't mind being called small right along with Frisk, simply because she was taller than him too, by about a head.

They followed her and saw that there were save points in front of her house, so they saved quickly.  ** _Seeing such a cute, tidy house in the Ruins gave them all determination_**. Stepping inside the house, Toriel greeted them again. "Do you smell that?" They did, and even sniffed the air, letting the soothing aroma fill their lungs, whatever it was smelled really good. "Surprise! It is a butterscotch-cinnamon pie. I thought we might celebrate your arrival. I want you to have a nice time living here. So I will hold off on snail pie for tonight." She said bashfully. "Here, I have another surprise for you." And then she went into the hallway on the right.

No one dared to comment on her mentioning to live here as in permanently for the second or third time since meeting her, they all wanted to ask Frisk about it, but decided wait until they were alone and out of Toriel's earshot. So for now they humored her and followed her into the hallway.

"This is it…" Toriel said cheerfully as she took each of Frisk and Sora's hands into hers and led them to the first door on the left. "A room you will share together. I hope you like it!" She gushed as she gently rubbed the tops of their heads. Suddenly the scent of the pie changed ever so slightly that it was a wonder that she caught onto it faster than the rest of them. "Is something burning…? Um, make yourselves at home!" She said a little nervously and dashed off to save the pie.

By making themselves at home, they decided to check out the room they were given. Inside, the room was adorable and coral-orange looking. There was bucket of cool looking toys that actually weren't that interesting at all. A box full of kids shoes in a disparity of sizes, none of which would've fit Frisk or Sora. An empty photo frame that was really dusty, a closet, and oddly enough only one bed. Well, she did say she was unprepared, but she may have forgotten to mention that she wasn't prepared for two humans to have fallen as well.

"Awful cozy." Goofy quipped as he took in the room in approval of raising a child Frisk's age in.

"Sure is, now onto business so's we can get the elephant outta the room." Jiminy started. Sora caught on and decided to be the true instigator of the question on everyone's mind before Donald had the chance to blurt anything out harshly.

"Right. Hey, Frisk? Was Toriel serious about us living here? Like, living here  _forever_  living here?"

Frisk looked down sadly and slowly nodded before starting to sign their explanation slowly.

"Frisk says that Toriel is so lonely here in these Ruins by herself, and has always wanted to raise children of her own, that anyone that falls down here, she takes in as her own. If we ask to leave, she may try to stop us, but with the Heartless popping up she may be more compliant because it's a little more dangerous here lately." Jiminy translated solemnly. Everyone understood the implications and remained quiet for a bit, until Donald decided to say his peace.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired from all that walkin' and there's a bed right there, and for all we know that pie Toriel made needs to cool. So how 'bout we sleep on the decision to not leave just yet for the sake that we need a nap for Pete's sake."

Everyone nodded in agreement that that was a good choice for now. So they shut off the lamp in the corner and piled onto the bed. Jiminy had hopped down from someone's shoulder for a second so he wouldn't be squashed like the bug that he was, before hopping on top of the dog pile once everyone was settled. Donald and Goofy nestled themselves on either side of Sora's shoulders, and Frisk laid their head on Sora's chest though the rest of them was sprawled across Goofy's legs on Sora's left side. Jiminy finally nestled himself in Sora's hair, making a nest in it, which was a lot easier now since the Keyblade wielder's hair had calmed down a little recently.

While they slept Toriel stepped in and smiled warmly at the adorable sight of them, and left a slice of pie for each of them a great distance away from the bed so they didn't accidentally step in it once they got up and untangled from themselves. Even Jiminy was getting his own tiny slice, on a doll sized china plate from a tiny tea set. "Sleep tight, my children." She whispered toward them as she slipped back out of the room without any of them stirring.

Later when they awoke, they were all delighted to find a slice of pie for each of them, and Jiminy was especially tickled pink to find a plate and a piece of pie just his size. The cricket was wise enough to jump over to the plates first to grab a hold of his slice, and waited for the mad dash of the others to settle so they could all dig in together, common courtesy after all.

They all sat in a circle, with plates in hand and forks in the air, they simultaneously shouted "Thanks for the food!" to the heavens, promptly sticking their forks into the pie. One bite was all it took for their taste buds to crash into heaven, and take a wrestling match countdown before they even remembered to take the forks back out of their mouths for more of this dangerously delicious butterscotch-cinnamon pie. Eventually they started chowing down like normal, but the sweetness was so good that they took their sweet time eating the pie, savoring the blend of flavors and taste.

Halfway through their pies however, they remembered what needed to be done, and slowed their eating even more as they became melancholy over the decision to leave this sweet lady to endure even more loneliness. No one wanted to say anything, as the implication itself was too heartbreaking, but somehow the words just said themselves as they came out of Sora's mouth.

"Y'know, not once have I ever been homesick since I started my journey. Even after the islands got swallowed up by darkness and I woke up in Traverse Town, I jumped at the chance to explore all the new worlds that were finally accessible to me thanks to having met you guys. Not once did I worry about anybody from the islands other than Riku and Kairi, not even my own  _ **mother**_. Heck, I didn't even think about her until that moment we talked to Rapunzel, back in the Kingdom of Corona, as she worried about her mother finding out that she snuck out of the tower. For once I'm in a place that's like  _ **home away from home**_. And now, I'm more homesick from the thought of leaving Toriel here all alone to have to suffer who  _knows_  how many years to wait for someone to fall down that hole."

Frisk tapped the floor twice to get Jiminy's attention so that he could translate for them, though patiently waited for him to finish his bite. Once Jiminy swallowed, Frisk started signing and the cricket promptly translated.

"Frisk has been through this process many times, and each time it doesn't get any easier to opt to leave, but it's the only way for everyone to be happy. Toriel will be fine, I promise. There's actually someone who visits her from time to time and keeps her company by telling her jokes through the door that leads out of the Ruins."

"She likes jokes?" Goofy asked hopefully. Maybe they could make her laugh before they left. That could probably ease her worries a little.

"You have no idea…?" Jiminy repeated as he translated but couldn't help but add his confusion as he said it.

"Whelp, let's go tell her the worst jokes up our sleeve." Donald quipped as he finished up his pie. The others followed suit, scarfing down the rest of their pies and got up to follow him.

They found her in a sitting area in the other direction of the front lobby, by a warm fireplace, the fire was strangely cool enough to stick one's hand in, but no one dared to tempt fate. She sat in a cozy looking chair reading an old book and even had reading glasses on. "Up already, I see? Um, I want you to know how glad I am to have someone here." She greeted them, and their hearts sank at that statement, and it didn't help them any as she continued to say lonely things. "There are so many old books I want to share. I want to show you my favorite bug-hunting spot. I've also prepared a curriculum for your education. This may come as a surprise to you…But I have always wanted to be a teacher…Actually, perhaps that isn't surprising.  _STILL_." She made a face at the single word and to this day, Frisk had no idea why. "I am glad to have you living here. Oh, did you want something? What is it?" She asked innocently. She was so innocently sweet that they couldn't bear to break any sort of news to her just yet. Luckily Sora thought of a plan b for now.

"Uh, we just wanted to thank you for the delicious pie! And we're going to wash these dirty dishes now, right guys?" Thankfully the others caught on and said their own compliments, even Donald added that he needed to get the recipe sometime.

"Oh, I'm so glad you liked it! But you don't have to go through the trouble…" She gushed.

"Uh, no, it's okay we insist! It's the least we can do for you letting us, uh, live here." Sora replied nervously, though he had enough enthusiasm in his tone that she didn't catch the nervousness.

"Alright, just call for me if you need anything." She said as they headed into the kitchen and heard them reply 'We will!' in unison. She gently shook her heads and muttered, "What sweethearts," under her breath.

In the kitchen they all breathed a whispered sigh of relief, well they had to keep their voices down, as she was sitting right outside the kitchen.

"Alright, how're we gonna do this?" Sora asked, and everyone turned to Frisk for guidance.

Fortunately, Frisk did have a plan in mind, but they had never tried this before even with the knowledge that she really liked terrible puns and jokes. So it was a fifty-fifty chance that it would even work. Frisk, through Jiminy's translations, said that it was better to tell her the jokes when she blocked the door that led to the exit of the Ruins. The only way to get her down there, (Frisk did also explain that the exit to the Ruins was down the stairs in the lobby), was to ask to leave. As heart breaking as the notion was, it had to be done. But first, they did what they told her they would do and cleaned those dishes, making sure they ignored all the white fur that was near the drain. Donald said he had a million jokes up his sleeve from having gotten his nephews joke books and having had to sit through plenty of them as the boys passed on the jokes to each other, so it was settled that the Duck would be the joke instigator.

When they were finished, having dried and stacked the plates neatly, with Jiminy's tiny plate placed carefully next to the stack, they went to do the inevitable. But as soon as they greeted her, her sweetness overpowered them again.

"Oh, hello! Did you want to hear about the book I am reading? It is called '72 Uses for Snails.' How about it?" They couldn't help but agree to hear about a few snail things. "Here is an exciting snail fact. Did you know that snails…Make terrible shoelaces? Interesting." They all couldn't help but agree regardless that Sora, Donald, and Jiminy wondered how that was even a fact about snails when it was obvious in the first place. "Well, bother me if you need anything."

"Well, actually there is something…" Sora started, but trailed off.

"Oh? What is it?" She asked sweetly and curiously for all the glory of her innocence, this was going to be heart wrenching to do.

"Um, how do we get out of the Ruins?"

She hesitated for a long while not bothering to look at any of them before coming to a decision on doing something she should have done a long time ago. "…I have to do something. Stay here." She finally replied without emotion. She put her book down and got out of her chair, and headed towards the stairs.

They followed her, headed down the stairs and found her a few feet from the base of them, as they approached, she spoke without turning fully to them, only enough so that they could hear her. "You wish to return 'home,' do you not? Ahead of us lies the end of the Ruins. A one-way exit to the rest of the Underground. I am going to destroy it. No one will ever be able to leave again. Now be good children, and go upstairs." With that she headed deeper into the corridor, but they caught up with her after about ten feet. This time when she spoke it was much more solemn. "Every human that falls down here meets the same fate. I have seen it again and again. They come. They leave. They  _ **die**_." A cold shudder passed through all but Frisk at the word 'die', never had they heard the word alone spoken so coldly with heartache. "You naïve children…If you leave the Ruins… They… **Asgore** …Will kill you. I am only protecting you, do you understand?...Go to your room." She continued walking again. They easily caught up to her again as she had stopped at a corner. "Do not try to stop me. This is your final warning." She walked straight ahead with the dignity of a Queen, they all noticed. Once more they caught up to her, and this time she was by the door, which had the same emblem as the one on her robes. This was it, there was no going back, and they would do their best to make sure no harm came to her as they would do their best to convince her to let them though. But for now, she still stood her ground. "You want to leave so badly? Hmph. You are just like the others. There is only one solution to this. Prove yourselves…Prove to me that you are strong enough to survive." She then turned to face them with no emotion but  _heartache_  etched into her eyes.

"What did the judge give the thief who stole the calendar?" Donald asked quickly and loudly. Which thankfully made her pause enough that their perspective didn't change into the white walls thing.

"Twelve months!" Goofy replied with enthusiasm. The joke worked enough that she blushed from trying to hold in her snickers.

"It's working, keep 'em coming fellas!" Jiminy cheered. Frisk was very glad to see this plan working. A certain skeleton that their friends had yet to meet would be proud.

"Why did the doctor take his eye chart into the classroom?"

"He wanted to check the pupils!"

On and on, joke after joke Donald and Goofy persisted, Sora and Jiminy even joined in when they managed to guess a few of them. After five jokes, she broke her defensive stance and started howling with laughter, like it was the best thing she'd heard in a while, like not since the last time she enjoyed the jokes of her buddy just outside the Ruins. After twenty jokes, she was laughing so hard that she had tears in her eyes, the only thing she regretted was not being able to write these down and relay them to that same friend of hers. Finally she threw in the towel by waving a hand at them, her sides not able to take it anymore.

"Oh, I haven't had such a good laugh in ages. I thank you for that, my children." She congratulated them cheerfully, but her tone soon grew tired and sad, knowing what must be done, every child must leave the nest at some point after all, even if the mother feels it's not yet time. "But you're right, you would be unhappy trapped down here. The Ruins are very small once you get used to them. And with the Heartless suddenly popping up, its not as safe here anymore. It would not be right for you to grow up in a place like this. My expectations…My loneliness…My fear…For you, my children…I will put them aside." She turned away from them and took a deep breath and prayed to the rune on the door with all her heart and soul that these children would be safe and stay safe as they passed through this door. "If you truly wish to leave the Ruins…" She paused, knowing that was a silly thought, they obviously wanted to leave even if reluctantly if she did read their faces correctly. "I will not stop you. However, when you leave…Please do not come back. I hope you all understand." She then turned around and hugged each of them, though Goofy made sure to pile on a group hug to make sure she knew that they did love her, platonically.

When she let go, it was the hardest thing to do since the last child left her with one last hug."Sora, you are a Keyblade bearer are you not?" He was caught off guard by the question and the fact that she knew what he was, all of them were, but he nodded all the same. "I have not seen one for cen-! For many years." She corrected herself. "The last time I saw one, Heartless plagued him wherever he went as well. I will never forget his name because it's such an unfortunate one to have, to the point that I get the feeling that something must have happened to him, as with all of my children that have passed through here. His name, was  _Ephemera_. Now whether he's still alive or not, I do not know for certain, but if you do by some chance come across him. Please, give him my regards."She added with a demure smile before taking a step back. "Goodbye, my children." She then walked away from them, but turned to look over her shoulder that they waved their goodbyes over their own shoulders. She smiled demurely at them and forced herself to face ahead and away from them before she broke down into tears, she didn't want them to remember her like that. She wanted them to remember her as a loving motherly figure who tried her best to protect her children, despite that they wanted to leave the nest early.

Sora's Keyblade didn't materialize on its own when they faced the door head on so it must've already been unlocked. They let Frisk do the honors since this was their world. They walked through another corridor and then another door, finally coming into a room with a rather unpleasant sight.

"Oh no, not you again." Donald groaned. The others made their own noises of disgruntlement as Flowey sat there before them with a rather smug look on his face.

"Clever. Verrry clever. You think you're really smart, don't you? In this world it's kill or be killed." Flowey said all too creepily in a 'pleasant' manner, it only got creepier as he continued. "So you were able to play by your own rules.  _You spared the life of a single person_.  _Hee, hee, hee_ …I bet you feel really great. You didn't kill anybody this time.  _Except those creatures that don't belong in this world like a few of you._  But what will you do if you meet a relentless killer? You'll die and you'll die and you'll die. Until you tire of trying. What will you do then?  _ **Will you kill out of frustration? Or will you give up entirely on this world…**_ _…and let me inherit the power to control it?_ _ **I am the prince of this world's future. Don't worry, my little monarchs, my plan isn't regicide. This is so much more interesting.**_ " His really creepy evil face got bigger as he cackled manically, before he retreated back into the ground and disappeared.

"Remind me to ask to remove any yellow flowers in the gardens back home, Goofy. 'Cause I ain't gonna sleep right for weeks otherwise." Donald quipped. Goofy nodded, and nervous but understanding chuckles were elicited from Sora and Jiminy. Frisk just let air through their nose loudly in a deep breath, in an effort to soundly relate to them without having to sign to Jiminy.

They continued forward through the final door that would lead them out of the Ruins and into the rest of the Underground. Now only two questions remained…Where else would their journey take them? And who was, Strelitzia, Lauriam, and most importantly, Ephemera?


	4. Sans and Papyrus the Skelebros

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice that this is a short chapter. Well, if you caught onto this fic from the beginning you would've noticed that I did a chapter a day for just the first two chapters and took my sweet time writing chapter 3. Reason for that is SOMEBODY didn't like my pacing (when it was just two chapters at the time) So I made a 9,000 worded one to reciprocate, and now I'm gonna do the same thing. Little chapters at a time, and a big one for possibly a finale for each area.
> 
> Up in the next chapter after this, more skelebros and dog marriage. Enjoy!

_**Snow**_. Snow as far as the eye can see, and trees as well, but mostly snow. The four that didn't belong in this world looked up to see that there were indeed rocks above them still, but the fact that there even was snow in here baffled them.

Sora even knelt down to touch it, and hissed as the cold seared up his fingers. "Yep, that's really snow alright… But I've never seen snow in a cave before. Hey, Frisk…How big is this cave?"

Frisk signed to Jiminy with a small smirk. "The Underground as a whole is decently sized, and pretty long of a walk if one plans to attempt going through it without resting. But after this snowy place there's only three more sections before reaching the end where the keyhole you're looking for most likely is. And don't worry, there isn't always going to be snow once we pass through this whole area." Jiminy translated slowly.

"Oh, there's snow place like home for the holidays." Donald couldn't help but sing jokingly, as he was still in a joke spouting mood even after that heartbreaking goodbye with Toriel. Goofy chuckled at least since he recognized the song Donald was singing. However, Jiminy glared at him for the word 'home' since Sora poured out a little bit of his heart about home, but didn't make a further comment since it seemed that the duck got the message.

Without the others noticing, Frisk smiled and waved at the camera hidden in the bush that was completely covered in snow, before catching up to their friends as they all walked down the path.

As they walked, it was hard not to notice how creepy this forest was, and the foreign quartet had been to Halloween Town for Pete's sake. This forest however, gave off a very eerie vibe and couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. They came across a big branch that looked sturdy enough that there was no way it could easily be broken, and stepped on and over it with ease. A few feet later they heard a huge snap echo through the forest…It came from behind them, and they looked back to find the branch had been broken like it was nothing. Slowly, they all looked at each other to make sure they weren't imagining things. Though Frisk knew about all of this, they were playing along with their friends current emotions for the sake of the element of surprise.

They all decided to continue on the path but at a much quicker pace. Anything to get out of this forest sooner. They didn't notice the brief sounds of footsteps that weren't their own because there were four of them walking as is, Jiminy stayed on Frisk's shoulder, having wrapped himself in the child's sweater collar for the time being. But they did feel the presence of someone watching them get closer, and turned around to check and saw nothing. Frisk tried not to smile and pretended to be as scared as the rest of them since only they knew what was coming. So the group continued and came upon a poorly made gate looking thing, and found that they couldn't move…no matter how hard they tried. Their stopped movement didn't help the chill crawl up their backs as footsteps in the snow crunched in their direction from behind them. When the footsteps reached them a voice chillingly whispered directly to Sora and Frisk.

" **Humans. Don't you know how to greet a new pal? Turn around and shake my hands**."

Whatever or whoever it was that spoke finally allowed them some movement but only enough to let them turn around, and only see a figure reach out their hands for a handshake from both of the humans. Sora reluctantly complied as he saw Frisk slowly reach out for the handshake at the corner of his eye….

And a big, loud and long, wet fart sound echoed throughout the forest seemingly coming from Frisk and this fully revealed short skeleton's half of the handshake. The whole thing was ridiculous enough that Donald and Goofy just howled with laughter. Sora and Jiminy were frozen in their weird combination of fear and mortified shock, and Frisk couldn't help but smile warmly at the always smiling skeleton in the blue jacket and slippers before them.

"heheh…the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. it's ALWAYS funny." The skeleton chuckled, smiling even more at the fact that the gag was very much appreciated by the two knuckleheads behind the humans and the cricket. "anyways, you two are humans, right? that's hilarious. i'm sans. sans the skeleton."

"I'm Sora, and this is Frisk." The teenager introduced himself and his fellow human, after a moment's hesitation to get himself out of the initial shock of the whole thing. The laughter from behind him finally began to die down so the quick introductions kept coming.

"Donald."

"Goofy!"

"And I'm Jiminy Cricket. It's a pleasure ta meet ya."

"pleasure's all mine… i'm actually supposed to be on watch for humans right now. but…y'know…i don't really care about capturing anybody. now my brother, papyrus…he's a human-hunting FANATIC. hey, actually, I think that's him over there. i have an idea. go through this gate thingy. yeah, go right through. my bro made the bars too big to stop anybody."

They did as they were told and came across two strangely shaped lamps that looked to be around Frisk's and Sora's height, and a sentry station that was littered with ketchup, mustard and relish.

"quick, kiddos behind those conveniently-shaped lamps, the rest of you will have to hide behind my sentry station." Sans instructed. Everyone obeyed and scampered into hiding just in time as they heard the quick, and determined footsteps of he who could only be Papyrus.

"sup, bro?" Sans greeted.

"YOU KNOW WHAT 'SUP,' BROTHER! IT'S BEEN EIGHT DAYS AND YOU STILL HAVEN'T…RECALIBRATED. YOUR. PUZZLES! YOU JUST HANG AROUND OUTSIDE YOUR STATION! WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING?!" Papyrus accused and questioned, even though it sounded as though this was a common thing to go through with Sans.

"staring at these lamps. they're really cool. do you wanna look?" Sans replied. The foreign quartet all mentally cursed Sans for selling them out already, but luckily for them it was all a reverse psychology trick.

"NO! I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT!" Papyrus retorted as he stamped his foot like an irritated child. "WHAT IF A HUMAN COMES THROUGH HERE!? I WANT TO BE READY! I WILL BE THE ONE! I MUST BE THE ONE! I WILL CAPTURE A HUMAN!"

"or a couple." Sans quipped, glancing at the lamps.

"OH PLEASE, BROTHER! THERES NOTHING IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNDERGROUND CONFIRMING TWO HUMANS PASSING THROUGH AT ONCE, SO LET'S NOT GET OUR HOPES UP!" Papyrus denounced. Then, he paused, and posed dramatically and heroically, with his cape flapping in the wind as he continued. "THEN, I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS…WILL GET ALL THE THINGS I UTTERLY DESERVE! RESPECT…RECPGNITION…I WILL FINALLY BE ABLE TO JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD! PEOPLE WILL ASK TO BE MY 'FRIEND?' I WILL BATHE IN A SHOWER OF KISSES EVERY MORNING."

"hmm… maybe these lamps will help you." Sans suggested playfully. Again the foreign quartet sweated nervously, not noticing that Frisk merely stifled their own chuckles.

"SANS! YOU ARE NOT HELPING! YOU LAZYBONES! ALL YOU DO IS SIT AND BOONDOGGLE! YOU GET LAZIER AND LAZIER EVERYDAY!" Papyrus complained, and resumed stomping his foot in agitation.

"hey, take it easy. I've gotten a **ton** of work done today. a skele- **ton**." Sans shot back gently, and as soon as he said the punchline a rimshot was heard and Sans winked comedically to an audience that wasn't there. Donald and Goofy had to stifle their own chuckles and thankfully it went unnoticed.

"SANS!" Papyrus almost whined.

"come on. you're smiling." Sans pointed out.

"I AM AND I HATE IT! SIGH…WHY DOES SOMEONE AS GREAT AS ME…HAVE TO DO SO MUCH JUST TO GET SOME RECOGNITION…"

"wow, sounds like you're really working yourself…down to the bone." Sans quipped, and another rimshot was heard at the punchline, only this time he posed comedically to the audience that wasn't there.

"UGH!" Papyrus groaned but tried to ignore it as he continued. "I WILL ATTEND TO MY PUZZLES…AS FOR YOUR WORK? PUT A LITTLE MORE, 'BACKBONE' INTO IT! NYEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!" Papyrus cackled and then left, but came back for one last 'HEH!' before finally leaving.

"ok, you can come out now." Sans called out to the hidden group. Sora fell forward, tired from having to stand perfectly still and unmoving that whole time. Donald and Goofy sighed in relief and bust another gut laughing in delay of Sans' jokes. Frisk went over to help Sora up. "i'm glad you fellas like my jokes." Sans couldn't help but admire the laughter coming from the duo.

"Welp, where we come from we live by a saying…" Goofy started.

"If ya don't have a sense of humor, you're better off dead!" Donald finished enthusiastically.

"that's a fantastic motto to live by, and I think I already got ya covered there. but, you guys outta get going. my brother might come back, and if he does…you'll have to sit through more of my hilarious jokes." Sans winked deviously.

After managing to get Sora back on his feet, the group couldn't help but hesitate on going in the same direction Sans' brother went. Sans noticed their hesitation, and attempted to ease their worries.

"what's the hold up? look there's nothing to be afraid of. it's just a dark cavern filled with skeletons and monsters." Sans winked.

"And Heartless." Sora quipped without thinking.

"oh, so _that's_ what those weird things were." Sans mused, and then thought of something else to ask. "actually, hey…hate to bother ya, but could you do me a favor? i was thinking…my brother's been kind of down lately…he's never seen humans before. and seeing you two might make his day. don't worry, he's not dangerous. even if he tries to be. thanks a million. i'll be up ahead." And Sans left going the way the group came, disappearing mysteriously in a matter of seconds.

"We didn't even get to have a say in that favor." Jiminy noted worriedly. "I don't like this, the last time anybody was capturing humans, mostly young-uns, Pinoke got himself into a world of trouble and ended up with donkey ears."

"Aw, don't worry Jiminy. I'm sure this definitely ain't like that." Goofy reassured the cricket.

"Whaddaya think, Frisk? Can we trust the skeletons enough to know that they won't hurt you and Sora?" Donald asked the child. Though little red flags have been going up like crazy in Donald's head so far, he'll admit that he was wrong to think ill of Toriel, and this little kid did seem to know what's what, so he had to make sure before passing judgement.

Frisk nodded with a smile, and everyone left it that and headed onward. They found another set of save points and decided to save. _**The convenience of those lamps still filled them with determination**_ …

" _Hey!_ We forgot to ask him why he had a lamp conveniently shaped to Sora's height!" Donald couldn't help but point out. "Any ideas why kid?" The duck asked skeptically.

Frisk shrugged and shook their head, looking genuinely confused. Sans works in mysterious ways anyways, but this was even more mysterious. The world may never know.


	5. Puzzles and Dog Marriage

The group moved away from the save point a smidge and came across a box next to a sign. The sign simply read, " **This is a box. You can put an item inside or take an item out. The same box will appear later, so don't worry about coming back. Sincerely, a box lover**."

Frisk took a look inside the box and took out the lone pink leather, Tough Glove that was inside and equipped it, then they put the toy knife into the box for safe keeping.

They all headed up the north path that was just before the box and came to a river with a fishing pole all by its lonesome. Reeling it in, all they found attached to the end of the line was a photo of a weird looking monster…in the white space underneath the picture itself were the words, "Call me! Here's my number!" and the number that supposedly belonged to the monster in the picture. They unanimously decided not to call.

So the went back the way they came and continued on the path that went past the box, and happened to run into the skeleton brothers again.

"SO AS I WAS SAYING ABOUT UNDYNE," Papyrus then cut himself off as he felt the presence of others besides his brother. He looked to his left and couldn't believe his eye sockets, two figures that were potentially humans standing in front of two monsters and a smaller monster that was perched on the shoulder of the smaller potential human. He looked to his brother who was looking at the group, so he himself looked back to the group, but his curiosity was getting the better of him so he looked to his brother again. Rinse and repeat until both of the skeleton brothers did this so quickly they just simply spun out, both of them facing the mismatched group. He decided to talk to his brother privately for a moment. "SANS! OH MY GOD! IS THAT…A PAIR OF HUMANS IN FRONT OF THOSE MONSTERS WHOM I HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE?!"

"uhhhh…actually, I think those are rocks." Sans answered him with a shrug. There was some space between the humans and Donald and Goofy, and in that space there were indeed some rocks.

"OH." Papyrus said dejectedly and looked quite crestfallen. Sans felt a little terrible that his brother didn't notice that as a joke and egged him on with something to get his hopes back up.

"hey, what are those in front of the rocks?"

"OH MY GOD!" Papyrus shouted excitedly. And turned to his brother and whispered with all of his might. "Are…Are those humans?"

"yes." Sans whispered back.

"OH MY GOD!" Papyrus shouted excitedly again. "SANS! I FINALLY DID IT! UNDYNE WILL… I'M GONNA…I'LL BE SO…POPULAR! POPULAR! POPULAR!" The tall skeleton shouted to the heavens. Then he composed himself with a loud "AHEM…" before he continued in his heroic looking manner, but to the group it made him look like an old fashioned villain, the kind that would tie a maiden to some train tracks. "HUMANS!...AND FRIENDS…YOU SHALL NOT PASS THIS AREA! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL STOP YOU! I WILL THEN CAPTURE YOU! JUST THE HUMANS TO BE PRECISE. YOU WILL BE DELIVERED TO THE CAPITAL! THEN… THEN!" He lost steam as he haphazardly admitted something in his next sentence. "I'M NOT SURE WHAT'S NEXT." But he still kept up his gusto as he continued. "IN ANY CASE! CONTINUE…ONLY IF YOU DARE! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!" With that he continued on down the path in the direction they were all going and went out of sight.

"well, that went well." Sans quipped. "don't sweat it, kids. I'll keep an eye socket out for ya." Then he too left to follow his brother.

"The capital, huh?" Jiminy mused aloud. "Isn't that where we're going anyway?" Frisk nodded and started signing a small explanation, which Jiminy translated. As Jiminy had just said, the capital was where they were all going anyway, so it wouldn't matter much if they got captured for real. When asked to elaborate on the 'for real' bit by Jiminy, Frisk happily explained that Papyrus is going to set up a bunch of puzzles and its best that everyone plays along, as it will make Papyrus warm up to them and either way, he's just too nice to really capture anyone. Plus, it's best to make Papyrus happy for Sans' sake, and Frisk warned them that Sans should never be underestimated, but didn't elaborate why. Thankfully, the others have seen enough things to know when someone is not to be underestimated, and take that kind of advice to heart, so they didn't question the warning.

However, Donald being skeptical as ever and keeping his guard up when the others obviously refused to, was still worried over the 'Capital' detail, only the other part that somehow got left out of the conversation. The capturing the humans part. If Papyrus was as nice and innocent as the kid claimed him to be, then the detail about what happens after sending a human to the capital must've been for a bad purpose. Donald then recalled on the legend Frisk told them, humans put the monsters down here…with a spell to keep them here…but magic, no matter what world its rules and properties could be used in, could easily go both ways. So if humans put them down here…maybe humans were the answer to getting them out. _**How**_ was the million munny question, and that just put Donald even more on edge.

As they continued down the path following where the skeleton brothers went, they got a phone call from someone who obviously had the wrong number as they bashfully ordered pizza but they got so flustered that they decided to text what they wanted on the pizza, the only problem was that the phone was so ancient it couldn't receive texting so out loud the phone said in an automated tone, character- by- character, "ASCII art of an anime cat-girl." It was evidently heard by the person on the other end because they quickly hung up out of embarrassment. Then they encountered Snowdrake, a teenage comedian who fought to keep an audience. They made terrible ice puns and Frisk and Sora chose to laugh at the pun. Snowdrake appreciated this particular audience, and so he was spared. The group then came across a pretty shabby looking cardboard box, but the narration note posted on it surprised them because of who made it. The narration read, "YOU OBSERVE THE WELL-CRAFTED SENTRY STATION. WHO COULD HAVE BUILT THIS, YOU PONDER… I BET IT WAS THAT VERY FAMOUS ROYAL GUARDSMAN! (NOTE: NOT YET A VERY FAMOUS ROYAL GUARDSMAN.)" Obviously it was built by Papyrus. It just baffled them that the craftsman ship was so shoddy for the sentry station, and though Sans' sentry station was littered with condiments, it was better built than this. Frisk was right. Don't underestimate Sans. Plus, they gave Papyrus credit for being proud of his achievement, even if no one told him that it was unsuitable.

Moving on they came to a sign that warned them to not move, and further along from it was a dog centric sentry post. They took the sign's warning somewhat to heart and tried to tiptoe past it…but to no avail. They froze when a head popped up from behind the counter of the sentry post, looking only with their eyes, they saw a shifty eyed dog slide all the way up and speak in a skeptical and confused tone.

"Did something move? Was it my imagination? I can only see moving things. If something was moving…For example, a human…I'll make sure it never moves again!"

With that, the group ended up in the weird white wall perspective again. Frisk automatically chose the Act option and then check. Doggo here was easily excited by moving things. Hobbies includes: squirrels. Doggo then warned what he couldn't see to not move an inch. Sora took that as a hint and carefully kept his heart in place right along with Frisk's as a blue sword passed right over them and they didn't take any damage from it. Doggo couldn't seem to find anything. Then Frisk chose to pet Doggo. Doggo got excited and loudly wondered how it got pet. "Pet! Pot! Pot! Pat!" Frisk then went to the Items option and scrolled until they got to the stick. They threw the stick and the dog ran to get it. They played fetch for a while. "Huh! A fun stick appears!" Doggo was then spared.

"A stick appeared out of nowhere, then disappeared. Was it a ghost stick? Did I just return it to the afterlife? I need some dog treats to think about this." Doggo said mostly to themselves, and slunk back down into the sentry post and out of sight.

The group continued to tiptoe down the path and stumbled upon a small pile of proof that someone's been smoking dog treats. Jiminy didn't like the implications of them one bit and quickly hopped down from Frisk's shoulder and kicked snow to cover the stubs of smoked dog treats. When they were fully covered he whipped around to face the two humans, spouting advice, almost furiously, on how smoking was very bad. His conscience job was kicking in again. No one had seen the cricket this angry looking before, and all four of the taller (than Jiminy) companions simply just nodded, with slight fear in their eyes. Thankfully, Jiminy was quite pleased with this response, and hopped back on to Frisk's shoulder.

They then got another phone call, and the voice was eerily familiar, it didn't help that the caller asked if their refrigerator was running, they answered yes to amuse them, and the caller responded that they'd be over soon to deliver the brewskis. Whatever the heck that meant, the foreign quartet had no clue. Frisk didn't bother to sign anything to explain. As there really wasn't an explanation. All Frisk knew was that if they had said 'no' the caller would send over a repair man, and would thank you for letting them know. Jiminy had a vague idea, and loudly announced and advised that if anyone offered them a drink called alcohol, they should deny it immediately, unless they're at least the age of twenty-one in which case, drink responsibly and most certainly not too much.

Moving on, they bumped into Sans again who had some advice to give. Of course, really his advice was just reiterating what they had just learned while fighting Doggo. But at least he came up with a silly way to remember it, by thinking of blue stop signs for blue attacks. They were also warned that Papyrus had a special attack, but the way Sans had worded the mention of it made it sound like the blue attacks were his special attacks. Frisk wanted the others to find out for themselves what Papyrus' special move was, even if it wasn't his real special, _special_ attack.

Then some Heartless showed up. Three of which were Large Snowmen, a subspecies of Large Bodies that Sora had never seen before but have actually been around since before the Keyblade war. There was also a Strange Tree Heartless, which was also from before the Keyblade war, and oddly enough it looked like a stack of Heartless trying to disguise themselves as a Christmas tree. There were also plenty of Icy Cube and Snowy Crystal Heartless to smack around for good measure.

"Hey, Sans. Mind if we cash in our favor?" Sora started as he summoned his keyblade and got into his battle stance, glancing at the skeleton and hoping that Sans heard him and wouldn't mind.

"save that favor for a rainy day. ya don't even need to ask, bucko. I'll keep the kiddo here outta harm's way." Sans said with a shrug, then he grabbed Frisk with one arm, Jiminy quickly stuffed himself into Frisk's collar, and Sans vanished within a blink of an eye.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy didn't have time to question it, they had Heartless to deal with. It wouldn't be as easy as all the Heartless battles had been at this point, there was a huge ice patch surrounding a lone sign, and the Heartless were right on it slowly skating their way toward them.

The trio decided to use the ice to their advantage, Sora summoned up the Tea Cups and all three of them went for a ride, squashing bucket loads of Icy Cubes and Snowy Crystals in their wakes. Once those miniscule Heartless were dispatched, all that was left were the three Large Snowmen and the Strange Tree Heartless. Some well-timed Firas and a few good whacks finished them off easily after the magic dispersed from summoning the Tea Cups.

Since they were all Emblem Heartless, hearts floated away after the vanquished puffs of darkness. Then a slow bone on bone clap rang out throughout this whole little area, soon followed by a faster, normal sounding clap. The trio followed their ears of where the sounds were coming from and found Sans and Frisk sitting precariously on a tree. Precariously indeed if Jiminy shouting with all his tiny might that hiding up here from the Heartless was a terrible idea and incredibly unsafe for a child Frisk's age. Sans didn't respond to Jiminy but he did grab the kid in one arm and in the blink of an eye they were on the ground, and not on the huge icy patch.

"i take it you boys aren't from this world, huh? and neither are those things I take it. so riddle me this, what are they and you fellas doing here in the first place?" Sans asked, dimming the lights in his eyes to make himself more intimidating.

His intimidation worked, but the trio before him looked over in Frisk's direction as if they wanted a confirmation or something. He could practically feel the kid beside him nod at whatever was being silently asked through eye contact alone. Surprisingly to him, they explained what they could and what was easiest to grasp. The Heartless were after the heart of this world, and this taller human, Sora, had the key to lock the heart of the world so that the Heartless can't get to it and everything can go back to normal. It oddly enough made sense to Sans, but he was confused for other reasons, scientific reasons, timeline reasons. This quartet and those Heartless had never been in any of the timelines before, and somehow they managed to end up in a very lucky timeline, a timeline where the young kid wasn't covered in dust and just didn't respond like a normal person would at his whoopee cushion in the hand joke. However they did explain that Heartless, the pure blooded ones that didn't have fancy red emblems on them at least, were born from the darkness in people's hearts. So maybe it was a manifestation of a buildup of the darker worse off timelines. Regardless, that lamp that was in Sora's height did come out of nowhere in the garbage dump this time around, and two lamps did look a little more natural even if Papyrus never cared about the lamps for the life of him. Sans turned to Frisk himself, returning the lights to his eyes and raised a brow at the kid.

Frisk signed to him, and Sans nodded with a relieved sigh and shrugged. "well, it seems that it is was it is. guess i've got a secondary part of a promise to keep." With that he walked over to a tree and leaned against it and seemingly took a nap. The group decided not to bother him, neither did they ask Jiminy to translate what Frisk said to Sans, they assumed that it was a simple, 'you can trust them' sort of thing.

They all looked at the sign finally, but only after they skid across the ice with Goofy constantly stumbling into them, though the sign wasn't much help. North was ice, South was ice, West was ice, but hey, East was Snowdin Town…and more ice. They followed Frisk up the North path, and came upon a regular snowman, a talking regular snowman. He wanted to see the world but couldn't because he was a snowman that wasn't built with legs, _like a certain other snowman that may or may not have already been met in a different world_. So the Snowman offered that they take a piece of him to carry around the world. The group complied since it was only fair to the snowman.

As they left, ending up in the spot where they fought the Heartless with an audience, they noticed Sans wasn't by that tree anymore. So they carried on, heading East, and ran into the skeleton brothers again though for the moment only Sans slightly took notice of them. "YOU'RE SO LAZY! YOU WERE NAPPING ALL NIGHT!" Papyrus complained at his brother.

"i think that's called…sleeping." Sans replied. Well it was a plausible response, but Papyrus wouldn't have any of it.

"EXCUSES, EXCUSES!" Then he turned and noticed the group. "OH-HO! THE HUMANS HAVE ARRIVED! IN ORDER TO STOP YOU…MY BROTHER AND I HAVE CREATED SOME PUZZLES! I THINK YOU WILL FIND THIS ONE…QUITE SHOCKING!" He nearly giggled at his own joke, but refrained for the moment and instead smiled quite smugly, and then proudly continued. "FOR YOU SEE, THIS IS THE INVISIBLE…ELECTRICITY MAZE! WHEN YOU TOUCH THE WALLS OF THIS MAZE, THIS ORB WILL ADMINISTER A HEARTY ZAP!" He explained as he held out a pretty blue and decently sized, little orb. "SOUND LIKE FUN? BECAUSE! THE AMOUNT OF FUN YOU WILL PROBABLY, IS ACTUALLY RATHER SMALL I THINK." He sounded like he was going for a joke but it probably sounded better in his head. "OK, YOU CAN GO AHEAD NOW."

Frisk held their arm out to stop the others from doing anything, as they themselves took a couple steps, and Papyrus got shocked, presumably by the orb. He looked mighty crispy after that, but he quickly shook it off and blamed his brother.

"SANS?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

"i think the humans have to hold the orb." Sans replied thoughtfully.

"OH, OKAY." Papyrus quipped cheerfully, and then proceeded to walk the exact path of the invisible walled maze, leaving footprints in the snow and everything. "HOLD THIS, PLEASE." Papyrus told them as he tossed in the air and quickly speed walked back through the maze over to his spot on the other side of it. While the orb landed safely on top of Frisk's head. Jiminy, Donald and Goofy gave the orb a 10 from each of them for the landing. "OKAY, TRY NOW." Papyrus called from the other side of the area.

Sora simply placed a finger on the orb so at least he was somehow participating, and Goofy held on to Sora's shoulders, and Donald held onto Goofy's side, careful not to tickle him. They were going to choo-choo train it through this maze together.

Somehow they made it through without Goofy's clumsiness ruining it for them, as they had followed Papyrus' footsteps exactly to the letter.

"INCREDIBLE! YOU SLIPPERY SNAILS! YOU SOLVED IT SO EASILY…TOO EASILY!" Papyrus shouted in shock. But it didn't deter his speech momentum. "HOWEVER! THE NEXT PUZZLE WILL NOT BE EASY! IT IS DESIGNED BY MY BROTHER, SANS! YOU WILL SURELY BE CONFOUNDED! I KNOW I AM! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!" With that, he moon walked to the next area and completely out of sight, while Sans remained.

"hey, thanks…my brother seems like he's having fun." Sans told them in appreciation. "by the way, did you see that weird outfit he's wearing? we made that a few weeks ago for a costume party. he hasn't worn anything else since…keeps calling it his 'battle body.' man, isn't my brother cool?" The group took Frisk's earlier advice to please him and smiled as they nodded. The smiles were genuine, they were just collectively ignoring the fact that Papyrus wanted to capture two of them, but Sans showing brotherly love for his brother was what had them sold.

They then continued on and found a kiosk run by a blue bunny looking monster. He was blue both figuratively and literally. And they decided to listen in on what had him down in the dumps. "I don't understand why these aren't selling…It's the perfect weather for something cold…" Then he looked up and took notice of them, instantly brightening up. "OH! CUSTOMERS! Hello! Would you like some Nice Cream? It's the frozen treat that warms your heart! Now just 15G!" Jiminy declined the offer, so Frisk got themselves and Sora, Donald, and Goofy some Nice Cream instead. "Here you go! Have a super-duper day!"

It was too cold to eat the Nice Cream so they stored it in their own respective inventories. Instead of a joke the wrappers say something nice. They crossed over a little bridge and saw a kickable snowball on a pseudo miniature golf course. They found the hole towards the southern end of the area and worked together to kick in in the hole. With great success of the snowball not melting much, they got a yellow flag, they're sure-fire accuracy put an end to the mayhem of "Ball." They also got 3G for it. Then they noticed Sans standing off to the side and went to go see what he had to say.

"i've been thinking of selling treats too. want some fried snow? it's just 5G." It was cheap enough so they all said yes, but then Sans had the gall to up the price. "did i say 5G? i meant 50G." The group knew that he was pulling their legs so they humored him and said yes again. And again he upped the price. "really? how about 5000G?" They all said yes again. "5000G. that's my final offer." They said yes even though they didn't have the money. "what? you don't have the money? hey, that's okay. i don't have any snow." Donald and Goofy just chuckled like school children after hearing a dirty joke, and Sans ever appreciating his ever faithful audience, clicked his non-existent tongue twice while pointing friendly finger guns at the chortling duo.

After having a good chuckle, they headed off to Sans' side and came to a small area that had two dog centric sentry posts, one was labeled 'his' and the other, 'hers'. In between the sentry posts was a sign that read, " **SMELL DANGER RATING** : Snow Smell – Snowman WHITE Rating, Can become YELLOW Rating. Unsuspicious Smell – Puppy BLUE Rating, Smell of rolling around. Weird Smell – Humans GREEN Rating, Destroy at all costs!" Though the word green was highlighted in red, because these dogs are apparently red-green color blind. There wasn't much else here so they went back the way they came, passing by Sans who was still there this time, and by the hole. Frisk waved at a camera hidden in a snowball when the others were preoccupied by a snowball that was actually a snowdecahedron, once they were finished admiring it and listening to Goofy spout some random nonsensical mathematics, they headed into the next area. Only to find that Sans had mysteriously teleported again as he was across the way with Papyrus.

"HUMANS! I HOPE YOU'RE READY FOR…" Papyrus trailed off, he was about to say 'my brother's puzzle', but there wasn't really anything up to Papyrus' caliber of puzzles in sight. There was a piece of paper in between the group and the skeletons though. "SANS! WHERE'S THE PUZZLE!?"

"it's right there. on the ground. trust me. there's no way they can get past this one." Sans replied, looking quite smug as if he were hiding an inside joke about something. Again, taking Frisk's advice to heart they actually sat down around the piece of paper and went about to solve the puzzle. It was a Monster Kidz Word Search on the paper, Goofy pulled out a pencil from his hat…after other assorted and random objects fell out beforehand such as a bowling ball, and they all started to circle the words they could find. There was however one huge problem, the biggest word which wasn't even really a word, was misspelled by one letter in comparison to what needed to be found. Donald then grabbed the pencil and changed the 'i' in the word that needed to be found into a 'u' so they could circle the word anyway, even though everyone chided him for cheating, he had a plausible defense, if Sans could cheat by teleporting every which way he went and gave them a printed out puzzle that cheated on its own by having one measly letter wrong, then what's the harm in cheating, just this once, themselves right back at a piece of paper? They went ahead with that and declared themselves done.

"SANS! THAT WAS TOO EASY FOR THEM!" Papyrus complained at his brother.

"whoops. i knew i should have used today's crossword instead." Sans replied with a laid back shrug. Papyrus however, looked insulted at the notion.

"WHAT!? CROSSWORD!? I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT! IN MY OPINION…JUNIOR JUMBLE IS EASILY THE HARDEST."

"what? really, dude? that easy-peasy word scramble? that's for baby bones." Sans gently retorted.

"UN. BELIEVABLE." Papyrus sighed exasperatedly, but then got a brilliant idea. "HUMANS AND FRIENDS! SOLVE THIS DISPUTE!" Still taking Frisk's advice, they all went with Junior Jumble, despite knowing that Crosswords could be quite tricky if it were twenty by twenty letters. Needless to say, Papyrus was quite happy about this response. "HA! HA! YES! HUMANS AND THESE MONSTERS MUST BE VERY INTELLIGENT! IF THEY ALSO FIND JUNIOR JUMBLE SO DIFFICULT! NYEH! HEH! HEH HEH!" Satisfied with everything he walked on ahead to wherever his next puzzle would be. Again Sans stayed behind.

"thanks for saying 'junior jumble' just to appease my brother. Yesterday he got stumped trying to 'solve' his horoscope."

"That's nothin'! You should see Sora trying to fly our Gummi ship to get to a world!" Donald couldn't help but blurt out. "Hey, it's been a while, my flying isn't that bad!" Sora shot back at the duck. "Not to mention Heartless always get in the way."

"Each star in thuh sky is a different world, and lately they've been blinkin' out 'cause darkness overtook 'em. That's also why we're doin' what we're doin'." Goofy explained to Sans, that was one small part that they left out of their explanation earlier. Sans' eyes lit up and subconsciously shaped themselves into little white stars.

"cool." Was all he could say in a very impressed tone. He loved science, and the stars especially. That much Frisk knew would be obvious to the others later on when they all reached the next section of the Underground.

The group decided it was time to keep on going and said their quick little goodbyes to Sans, knowing they'd see him again very soon for whatever set of puzzles lay ahead of them. They came upon a set of save points near a note, a plate of spaghetti on a table and an unplugged microwave next to the spaghetti, and it was all in front of another mouse hole. They read the note first, they recognized the handwriting from a certain shoddy looking sentry station they had encountered earlier. Obviously it was from Papyrus.

"HUMANS AND FRIENDS! PLEASE SHARE AND ENJOY THIS SPAGHETTI. (LITTLE DO YOU KNOW, THIS SPAGETTI IS A TRAP…DESIGNED TO ENTICE YOU ALL! YOU'LL BE SO BUSY EATING IT…THAT YOU WON'T REALIZE THAT YOU AREN'T PROGRESSING! THOROUGHLY JAPED AGAIN BY THE GREAT PAPYRUS!) NYEH-HEH-HEH, PAPYRUS." The note read honestly. Well, it was a very nice gesture even for someone who was supposed to be capturing humans. They looked over at the plate of spaghetti, and unsurprisingly in this strange for a cave weather, the plate of spaghetti was frozen to the point that it was quite stuck to the table. The microwave next to it would have also been very nice if it were possible to lift the spaghetti off of the table, and if the microwave was even plugged in, which it wasn't. Humorously enough, all the settings on the microwave said 'spaghetti'.

"Hey, Frisk. How good is Papyrus' cooking?" Donald asked out of the blue. He had an idea to actually heat the spaghetti, a simple Fira should do the trick, but he wanted to see if it was even worth the effort first. "Be honest now." Frisk visibly cringed, shook their head, and formed their arms into an 'x' as a universal signal. Papyrus wasn't that good, but according to Sans, he was getting better. "Figures, he doesn't look like the type to be very good at cooking, even if that spaghetti wasn't frozen, I don't think I'd be able to eat it." Donald said knowingly. Before he could be reprimanded he added loudly in case Sans happened to be listening in, "But I'm sure he's trying his best to cook. That's what matters."

"Tempting as that spaghetti is, I sure could go fer a bologna sandwich right about now." Goofy said sadly as a grumble from his stomach sounded. "I could even go fer more of Miss Toriel's pie, but that ain't even an option anymore."

"Aw, don't worry, Goofy. I'm sure there's gotta be a town somewhere." Sora told him cheerfully. Then he turned to their youngest friend. "Right, Frisk?" Frisk nodded and then signed. Jiminy was more used to translating from across from Frisk, but since the cricket was still in the warmth of the turtle neck of Frisk's sweater, he had to adjust himself a little.

"Uh, Frisk says there is a town around here, but it's still a ways a way and we have more puzzles to get through before we get there." Jiminy translated to the best of his ability at this angle.

"Welp, we better get going then. Those puzzles aren't going to solve themselves. Besides, maybe the mouse in that hole will eventually get to the spaghetti and appreciate it more than we would have." Sora encouraged them all. The others nodded in unison. They saved before they continued onward. _**Knowing the mouse might one day find a way to heat up the spaghetti…It filled them all with determination**_.

Moving into the next area, they instantly came across a sign that read " **WARNING: DOG MARRIAGE**." It was such an odd warning that no one but Frisk knew what to make of it. So they continued on, encountering Lesser Dog, who wielded a stone dogger made of pomer-granite, as they explored. They threw the stick that Frisk still had and played fetch for a while, and noticed Lesser Dog's neck grew longer by a few inches. They then pet Lesser Dog numerous times and found that its neck elongated a little more each time it was pet. They pet it so much that its head had gone where no dog had gone before, so they finally spared him.

After they all got out of the white walled perspective, Donald had one heck of an idea to break the whole system of things. "Hey, if that dog's neck can grow so long, why doesn't anyone try to use them to climb up and out of the hole at the very beginning of the Ruins?"

"That's a pretty good idea." Goofy complimented. Everyone looked to Frisk. Frisk shrugged and signed that they hadn't thought of that before.

"That is a fairly good idea, Donald. Except that there's a few things wrong with it…I'm sure as vague as the legend is about the spell that's keeping everyone down here, there aren't any loop holes. Surely even if it were possible to climb back up and outta that hole, there's something magical preventing folks from leaving. I'm sure they might have already tried it when they first got stuck down here, and nowadays Toriel keeps that door locked so there isn't any way to test it out now. Even if we use the Keyblade to open it, there might be a barrier over the entrance too, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly don't want to walk all the way back just to test it. We just gotta keep moving forward." Jiminy said, trying not to dishearten the duck too much. Donald nodded with an exasperated sigh of agreement. It was an idea that was worth a shot at mentioning.

They continued on until Goofy stumbled into a small layer of freshly placed snow, the layer of snow was hiding something underneath. It turned out to be a map of the general area. There was an x supposedly in between three objects. The only objects around really were three trees. There were spikes nearby this map, so they figured that they were looking for a switch. They all wandered in between the three trees and came to this little patch of dirt. They had to poke around here and there, as it was half buried in dirt and snow. The resounding click was quite satisfying to hear to let them know that the spikes were down. They wandered back and went past where the spikes were, crossing over a little bridge. Then, they were approached by two dogs wearing black hooded robes.

"What's that smell?" Asked one.

"(Where's that smell?)" Asked the other.

"If you're a smell…"

"(…identify yoursmellf!)" The two dogs scanned the little plateau they were standing on with their noses, before their noses brought them right back to the group.

"Hmm…Here's that weird smell…It makes me want to eliminate."

"(…Eliminate YOU!)" The dogi assaulted them. Dogamy was the husband of Dogaressa, and knows only what he smells. Dogaressa was the kind of puppy who finds her hubby lovely. SMELLS ONLY?

Within the white walled perspective, Frisk and Sora dodged the axes that belonged to the dogi by going under them. They also dodged blown kisses by two little white dogs, and had to weave through blue and normal white hearts. When the chance to act came upon them again, Frisk took the opportunity to roll around in the dirt, Sora mimicked, knowing Frisk must've had a plan. Then Frisk let the dogs re-sniff them. The dogi got confused as now they smelled weird puppies before them, but that was okay with them. Then the dogi had their minds blown and their horizens widened when these puppies pet them. Dogs petting dogs? Amazing! Their minds expanded. They were then spared.

"Dogs can pet other dogs?"

"(A new world has opened up for us…)"

"Thanks weird puppies!" The two dogs said together in unison, and then left.

Thus, the group carried on, remarking very briefly on how weird that whole experience was.


	6. Finishing Puzzles, Snowdin, Dates with Skellies

Our beloved little group had to come to terms with no choice but to ditch a certain monster named Jerry before sparing the other monsters who were just as annoyed at him as they came to be. Jiminy was the only one who was saddened by this notion, but even he couldn't escape being annoyed by Jerry's irritating antics. Then they came across another puzzle, one that was fun and easy enough after having read the instructions on the sign to turn all the 'x's on the ground into 'o's by stepping on them once and then pressing the switch.

However, before they could even begin to do much other than turn the x on the right into and o, they noticed Papyrus on the other side of the spikes, and in turn Papyrus noticed them too.

"WHAT!? HOW DID YOU AVOID MY TRAP? AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY…IS THERE ANY LEFT FOR ME?" He looked so hopeful when he asked that question that seemed like it came out of left field, but after a second everyone realized he was talking about his spaghetti. None of them had the heart to tell him that they left it because it froze over completely, so they told him that they ate it. "REALLY!? WOWIE…NO ONE'S EVER ENJOYED MY COOKING BEFORE…WELL THEN! FRET NOT HUMANS AND FRIENDS! I, MASTER CHEF PAPYRUS…WILL MAKE YOU ALL THE PASTA YOU COULD EVER WANT! HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH NYEH!" With that, he headed off.

Before they could even start doing the super easy puzzle, Ice Cap strutted into view and into the white wall perspective they all went. Frisk naturally chose the Act option and the Check. Ice Cap – this teen wonders why it isn't named 'Ice Hat.' "Where's YOUR hat?" Ice Cap asked snobbishly. When they got the chance, Frisk and Sora complimented Ice Cap, informing them that they have a great hat! "Duh! Who DOESN'T know?" Ice Cap replied in a high and mighty tone, greatly appreciating the compliment. Frisk and Sora had to tear their eyes away from Ice Cap's hat before they could spare it.

After getting out of the white walled perspective, the group finished up the exceedingly simple puzzle and followed the direction the tall skeleton went. Within the next area, they encountered Papyrus again.

"MY BROTHER STARTED A SOCK COLLECTION RECENTLY. HOW SADDENING…SOMETIMES I WONDER WHAT HE WOULD DO…WITHOUT SUCH A COOL GUY TAKING CARE OF HIM? NYEH HEH HEH!" He told them proudly. Then walked them over to the puzzle that was a few feet further ahead. "HUMANS, AND FRIENDS! HMMM…HOW DO I SAY THIS…YOU WERE TAKING A LONG TIME TO ARRIVE, SO…I DECIDED TO IMPROVE THIS PUZZLE…BY ARRANGING THE SNOW TO LOOK MORE LIKE MY FACE. UNFORTUNATELY THE SNOW FROZE TO THE GROUND. NOW THE SOLUTION IS DIFFERENT! AND, AS USUAL, MY LAZY BROTHER IS NOWHERE AROUND. I SUPPOSE WHAT I'M SAYING IS…WORRY NOT HUMANS AND FRIENDS! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL SOLVE THIS CONUNDRUM! THEN WE CAN BOTH PROCEED! MEANWHILE, FEEL FREE TO TRY THE PUZZLE YOURSELVES! I'LL TRY NOT TO GIVE AWAY THE ANSWER!"

The puzzle was the same as in the area before, turn every x into an o. They could sort of see the bits of it that almost looked like Papyrus' face, other than that it didn't really look like him at all. Frisk knew it was much more fun to solve the puzzle by hand rather than using Papyrus' cheat switch that was hidden in the tree to the right of the tall skeleton (on Papyrus' right). Thus, a little team work helped a lot, Donald and Goofy hit the tougher-to-get-to-in-one-sitting x's, while Sora got the easier ones, Frisk hit the switch once the trio had done their thing. Needless to say Papyrus was thoroughly impressed.

"WOW! YOU SOLVED IT! AND YOU DID IT ALL WITHOUT MY HELP…INCREDIBLE! I'M IMPRESSED! YOU MUST CARE ABOUT PUZZLES LIKE I DO! I'M SURE YOU WILL LOVE THE NEXT PUZZLE THEN! IT MIGHT EVEN BE TOO EASY FOR YOU! NYEH! HEH HEH! HEHEHEH!" Papyrus said with pride for them. Then of course he headed onward to whatever next puzzle in store for them that he would personally see to.

As the group followed in the direction that he was going they noticed Sans just beyond where the spikes blocking the way were.

"good job on solving it so quickly. you didn't even need my help. which is great 'cause i love doing absolutely nothing." Sans said casually as they passed by him. They all told him thanks and headed into the next area.

Unsurprisingly, Sans had teleported again as now he was standing with his brother across the way, and in between the group and the skeletons was a lot of grey pixilated tiles of some sort, and next to Papyrus was some sort of machine. They easily assumed the pixilated grey tiles were part of the next puzzle, and awaited instructions from the skeleton brothers. However, Frisk quickly signed to Jiminy (after gently tapping him to get his attention) for someone to get a pencil and paper. They were going to need it for later. Once again Goofy's hat came through providing a note pad, though Donald had kept the pencil they used earlier and had stored it in one of his chest pockets.

"HEY! IT'S THE HUMANS AND THEIR FRIENDS! YOU'RE GONNA LOVE THIS PUZZLE! IT WAS MADE BY THE GREAT DR. ALPHYS! YOU SEE THESE TILES!? ONCE I THROW THE SWITCH…THEY WILL BEGIN TO CHANGE COLOR! EACH COLOR HAS A DIFFERENT FUNCTION!" Papyrus said gleefully. Frisk, through Jiminy's translation, warned the others to get ready to write down instructions.

"RED TILES ARE IMPASSABLE! YOU CANNOT WALK ON THEM! YELLOW TILES ARE ELECTRIC! THEY WILL ELECTROCUTE YOU! GREEN TILES ARE ALARM TILES! IF YOU STEP ON THEM…YOU WILL HAVE TO FIGHT A MONSTER! ORANGE TILES ARE ORANGE-SCENTED. THEY WILL MAKE YOU SMELL DELICIOUS! BLUE TILES ARE WATER TILES. SWIM THROUGH IF YOU LIKE, BUT…IF YOU SMELL LIKE ORANGES! THE PIRAHNAS WILL BITE YOU. ALSO, IF A BLUE TILE IS NEXT TO A YELLOW TILE, THE WATER WILL ALSO ZAP YOU! PURPLE TILES ARE SLIPPERY! YOU WILL SLIDE TO THE NEXT TILE! HOWEVER, THE SLIPPERY SOAP…SMELLS LIKE LEMONS! WHICH PIRAHNAS DO NOT LIKE! PURPLE AND BLUE ARE OK! FINALLY, PINK TILES. THEY DON'T DO ANYTHING. STEP ON THEM ALL YOU LIKE. HOW WAS THAT!? UNDERSTAND?" Papyrus explained the rules cheerfully. Donald was the fastest writer, being able to write all of that info down. His hand was cramping, and he certainly hoped that this was all worth it. The group told Papyrus that they understood everything. "GREAT! THEN THERE'S ONE LAST THING… THIS PUZZLE… IS ENTIRELY RANDOM!" Papyrus shouted and paused for dramatic effect. "WHEN I PULL THIS SWITCH, IT WILL MAKE A PUZZLE…THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE! NOT EVEN I WILL KNOW THE SOLUTION! NYEH HEH HEH! GET READY…!" Papyrus then pulled the switch.

The grey tiles turned to color and shifted, and shifted and the shifting got faster and faster, until it finally stopped….It stopped on a good stretch of pink tiles, enough for a few people to walk on side by side at once, and was outlined by red tiles. It took a few seconds of absolute silence before Papyrus just exasperatedly spun out of the area, Sans even stepped aside to let his brother through, which after the taller skeleton was out of sight, came the laughter from the whole group on the other side of the puzzle. They laughed so hard they all just flopped to the ground, making snow angels as they laughed, they even heard Sans chuckling because their laughter was so contagious.

It took a long while for the laughter to die down, but when it finally did, Sora was the first one up and helped the others get up as well. They then walked across the pink tiles without incident, letting out a few more chuckles as they walked. When they got to Sans, their chuckles finally died down as did Sans' own stifled chuckles.

"actually, that spaghetti from earlier…it wasn't too bad for my brother. since he started cooking lessons, he's been improving a lot. i bet if he keeps it up, next year he'll even make something edible." Sans told them with his ever brother loving smile plastered on his face.

The majority of the group couldn't help but look at Donald at the statement. The duck grumbled under their gaze, but he still felt justified in having asked about it first and totally not risking food poisoning.

"Alright so we should've heated it up and tried it, so sue me. But if I was the test subject to eat it first and I got sick from it, I'd shove it down all your throats to make you suffer with me!" Donald retorted.

"Aw, c'mon Donald. You know we would all eat it at the same time." Sora reassured him. Donald just glared at the taller boy, it was still astounding just how much Sora grew in that time they were sleeping in those weird pods, Donald's glare was more of a silent 'yeah right.'

They all moved on and came across a ton of snow dog heads…and necks, almost as if someone was trying to replicate Lesser Dog's elongated neck down to a 'T' but kept messing up. One even had a curly cue, so that one at least was somewhat pretty close. There was a dog-centric sentry station and all that was inside and on the floor was a box of pomeraisins. The sign next to the station simply said "AWARE OF DOG. pleas pet dog." And after talking to the deer like monster who, described a dog filled with inspiration and kept trying to make a snowdog that expressed its own emotions, but as it built it kept getting more excited, and with its own neck getting longer and longer…it was safe to assume that the sentry station here belonged to Lesser Dog and it tried to make a snowdog that looked like itself but kept failing. According to this deer like monster in a sweater straight out of the late 80s- early 90s, it was hard to look away.

There was also a set of save points here, so they saved. _**Knowing that dog will never give up trying to make the perfect snowdog…It filled them all with determination.**_

So they continued on, and came across a puzzle that was similar to the previous two before it, turn the x's into o's. The main difference being that there was ice involved. So of course after one attempt as a group, they fell off the side and came across the snow sculptures that were very obviously made by the skeleton brothers. There was a lump of snow with Sans' name written on it in red marker, and Papyrus did a very nice likeness of himself for the skull at least, and added body builder muscles and a scrap piece of scarf to make it look cooler. After admiring the sculptures, they climbed back up the given path, they then went at the puzzle one by one. Frisk already knew the solution of course so they let the others figure it out themselves first. Soon all the x's had been turned to o's and all that was left was to hit the switch, which they let Frisk do the honors of hitting. As soon as it was stepped on the ice magically formed more pieces of itself to connect with the rest of the icy path. They all slid down it and through some thick trees, and when they came out the other side, they all had snow hats, except for Donald, who somehow managed to get a snowbird on his head.

"Hmmm…Looks like a kiwi." Goofy mused aloud getting a closer look at the snow bird on Donald's head before it disintegrated from the ducks movement.

"But aren't kiwis fruit?" Sora asked, genuinely confused.

"Kiwis are birds as well, Sora. But they're still both different things." Donald replied, he should know, he was technically a bird too.

Though they could've gone forward, Frisk lead them to their right first, and ran into Sans and all he had to say this time was "what's up?" They walked a little farther down the path past Sans and encountered him again as soon as he was out of sight from his original spot, grade A confirmation of his teleporting skills. "say…are you following me?" was all he asked cheekily, knowing full well that they figured out that he could teleport already.

"Heh, good one Sans," was all Sora could reply with. As soon as they tried to go past him again however, they ran into Gyftrot who had a bunch of stuff decorated onto it as a prank by local teens. They quickly undecorated it and left it a present of 35 munny, before moving on, they weren't risking the gold, and at least Frisk got to see that munny looked like little yellow diamond shaped things.

They then went into a cave and came across a door that normally wouldn't be opened and it was surrounded by glowing mushrooms that shut their light off when one touches them. Unbeknownst to the others and any other form of logic, Frisk here had dodged all the special thanks credits in their last run of the Underground, and this will be their first time seeing what is in that mysterious door.

Quite frankly it was a mildly disappointing sight. The annoying dog was sleeping here, not that the dog was annoying just yet, at least to the foreign fellas of the group, but Frisk knew this silly dog all too well, it stole Toriel's phone, and apparently it did its own stunts judging by the coil of rope in the corner, but only Frisk knew about that part too since the dog's death defying stunt hasn't happened just yet. All the pieces were coming together…in a jigsaw puzzle off to the side. There was a game cartridge in another corner and with apparently by barking with text-to-speech on, the dog accidentally programmed a whole game. The game seems fine. There was a computer in the adjacent corner, and evidently the dog makes a lot of bad posts online. Text-to-speech is on, indicating that whenever the dog barks, it translates to these bad posts. It doesn't really know what its saying, so it seems most of the bad posts online are actually this dog. Thinking about this…brought Frisk some relief. Finally, there was another 'dog' in the final corner of the room. They all tried to pet the dog but it collapsed into a pile of fluff…Seems like it was actually a dog shaped husk of dog residue.

With nothing else to look at in the room, they left it and ran into Glyde…somehow…They learned very quickly that Glyde had very high attack and defense and just plain refused to give any more details about its statistics. Glyde was also as arrogant as Ice Cap, maybe more so since it ate up the applause they gave it like a vacuum cleaner and even got jealous of its own mirror image. They clapped at it a few more times before doing nothing, which made Glyde grow bored of them instantly and left, leaving quite the generous amount of gold behind.

So they went back the way they came, passing by Sans twice again, and back up the path just to go in the direction that they didn't go in first. They came across a field of snow poffs with a cute tiny dog house off to the side. The dog house had to be bigger on the inside that much Frisk alone knew for a fact. The sign next to it simply said woof. There was 30 G inside one of the snow poffs so they took it just in case. Finally, when they decided to move on, there was a snow poff in the way…except it wasn't a snow poff, it was a cute little white dog! Except it got up and quickly proved that it wasn't little, it was a tall dog in a suit of armor. It's the Greater Dog!

Greater Dog was so excited that it thought fighting was just playing. They beckoned the dog and it bounded toward them, flecking slobber into their faces. They then pet the Greater Dog, and it curled up in Sora's and Frisk's laps as it was pet by them. It got so comfortable that it fell asleep…ZZZ…Then it woke up! It was so excited! Then Sora and Frisk made a snowball and threw it for the dog to fetch. It splats on the ground. Greater Dog then picked up all the snow in the area and brought it to them. Now dog is very tired…It then decided to rest its head on Sora and Frisk. To get its attention again, Frisk brought out the stick and threw it, the dog got up and ran to get it, playing fetch with the two humans for a while. Then it was obvious that the dog wanted some TLC, so both humans pet it some more and it sank its entire weight into them…Their movements slow. But, they still haven't pet enough…! Pet capacity is 40%. Frisk and Sora pet decisively. Pet capacity reaches 100%. The dog flops over with its legs hanging in the air. Greater Dog is contented, so it was spared.

As it turned out, it really was a **little** white dog, as it hopped out of the standing suit of armor and gave the two humans a lick, and then hopped back into the suit of armor with its tail sticking out of the neckline and the suit of armor walked away just like that.

"Well, the dogs here aren't Pluto, but they sure are cute." Donald quipped. Everyone else agreed, even Frisk gave a beaming smile even though they didn't know who Pluto was.

The group continued on and came to a bridge, it was sturdy and thankfully not rickety though it honestly looked like it could be since it was over a long way down. About halfway across they came upon the skeleton brothers again who were rather prepared looking on safe ground at the end of the bridge.

"HUMANS! AND FRIENDS OF HUMANS!" Papyrus addressed them. "THIS IS YOUR FINAL AND MOST DANGEROUS CHALLENGE! BEHOLD THE GAUNTLET OF DEADLY TERROR!" With that, an actual gauntlet of things lowered from either side of the bridge and into view. There was a spiky ball on a chain, a well-lit flamethrower ready to melt things, two spears, one on each side, a cannon, and…a small white dog spinning in a small semi-circle as it dangled from a rope…it really does do its own stunts. "WHEN I SAY THE WORD, IT WILL FULLY ACTIVATE! CANNONS WILL FIRE! SPIKES WILL SWING! BLADES WILL SLICE! EACH PART WILL SWING VIOLENTLY UP AND DOWN! ONLY THE TINIEST CHANCE OF VICTORY WILL REMAIN! ARE YOU READY!? BECAUSE! I! AM! ABOUT! TO DO IT!"

The trio behind Frisk couldn't help but trust their gut instincts and set themselves in a defensive stance, ready for anything that was about to happen….But Papyrus hesitated on doing anything, just as Frisk knew and didn't bother getting into a defensive position themselves. The hesitation became so obvious in ten seconds of nothing happening that Sans couldn't help but say something about it.

"well? what's the holdup?"

"HOLDUP!? WHAT HOLDUP!? I'M… I'M ABOUT TO ACTIVATE IT NOW!" Papyrus defended, and pretended to fiddle with something to make it look like he activated it, but still…nothing happened.

"that, uh, doesn't look very activated." Sans quipped cheekily, knowing his brother all too well.

"WELL! THIS CHALLENGE! IT SEEMS… MAYBE TOO EASY TO DEFEAT THE HUMANS AND THEIR FRIENDS WITH." Papyrus admitted. "YEAH! WE CAN'T USE THIS ONE! I AM A SKELETON WITH STANDARDS! MY PUZZLES ARE VERY FAIR! AND MY TRAPS ARE EXPERTLY COOKED! BUT THIS METHOD IS TOO DIRECT! NO CLASS AT ALL! AWAY IT GOES!" With another push of an actual button it all went away.

"PHEW!" Papyrus turned away and sighed in relief and then heard slight movement on the bridge behind him. He turned back around to find Frisk smiling cheekily and the trio behind them also smiling in the same way as they dropped their defensive stances. "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT!? THIS WAS ANOTHER DECISIVE VICTORY FOR PAPYRUS! NYEH! HEH!...HEH?" He then ran off, suddenly flustered.

They all then started to walk to the other side of the bridge to talk to Sans. However, before they could take even one step, Donald quacked in surprise and was pointing across the bridge in the direction that they just came from, when they all got a good look at him, he looked as if he had just seen a ghost and not a good one like Napstablook.

"What's up, Donald?" Sora asked curiously. It would take a lot to spook the duck, since he was just that brave in his own feistiness.

"I swear I just saw that stupid flower on the side of the bridge where we just came from!" Donald told them. They all looked in the direction that he was pointing but saw nothing.

"Gwarsh, I don't see anything. Maybe yer seein' things 'cause yer hungry, Donald." Goofy suggested.

"I'm not _that_ hungry! I'm telling you I saw Flowey!" Donald defended and then turned to Frisk since this was their world, and they knew a lot about it. "You believe me, don't you kid?"

Frisk smiled and nodded and mouthed a sentence to Donald, since it was faster. _He'll always be following us._

Donald wanted to have a conniption so badly in that moment and it was directed at the creepy talking flower. But in the presence of this child he couldn't, so he had to breathe in through his nose and exhale through his mouth to calm himself down just a little. Then he turned in the direction of where he last saw the flower and yelled. "You're lucky I'm with two innocent kids! 'Cause if I had my say, I'd cuss you out, you little weed!"

"Okay, Donald, that's enough." Jiminy consoled him from Frisk's sweater collar.

"C'mon, Donald, Sans is waiting." Sora added as he and the others turned to cross the rest of the way of the bridge.

"i don't know what my brother's going to do now. if i were you, i would make sure i understand blue attacks." He told them. "what was all the yelling for if ya don't mind me asking?"

"Just an annoying dog that I had to blow some steam at." Donald answered before anyone could think of an excuse to tell the small skeleton. Everyone looked at him perplexed. " _What_? Frisk let me borrow the cell phone earlier, I've been making calls whenever you yahoos ain't lookin' and a small white dog swiped _her_ phone. I could just make out her voice as she looked around for the little scamp, that's how I know what color the dog was." Donald explained, masterfully leaving out Toriel's name since it wasn't really Sans' business at the moment. Though it looked like it didn't really matter much as Donald was the only one who noticed that Sans dimmed the lights in his eyes again.

Everyone was pretty much speechless, except for Frisk who was giggling. The lights returned to Sans' eyes as he glanced at the giggling child, almost as if he were contemplating something.

"town's just up ahead. ya might wanna look under the tree when you get the chance, you might find something interesting…" Sans told them with a wink, trailing off in a giddily pleased tone.

Frisk gasped and everyone turned to find them looking excited. Frisk then quickly gave Sans a hug, nearly squishing poor Jiminy, who was still in the child's sweater collar, before pulling away and grabbing Sora's hand, all but dragging him into town. Donald and Goofy followed suit, politely waving goodbye to the suddenly cryptic skeleton, as they too were curious as to what Frisk was suddenly so excited about.

At long last they were finally in Snowdin Town. They snickered at the play on words and the pun that it obviously was as Frisk stopped dragging Sora as they reached a set of save points. _**The sight of such a friendly town filled them all with determination.**_

"Alright little buddy, what's got you so excited that I'm not connecting the dots?" Sora asked a little breathlessly at he actually struggled a little to keep up with the child.

Frisk pointed ahead of them, Sora followed the finger and looked to find a Christmas tree of all things.

"Whoa! They celebrate Christmas here too?!" Sora asked excitedly. He then looked to Frisk again, only to find that they kept their hand flat and moved it side to side up and down to signal the universal 'sort of'. Then through Jiminy's translations they explained that Monsters didn't call it Christmas, and it was better for the bear monster by the tree to explain the difference.

So, taking Frisk's advice they went over to talk to the bearlike monster by the tree, who also seemed to have the self-proclaimed job of organizing the presents under the tree. "Awful teens tormented a local monster with tree-like horns. So we started giving that monster presents to make it feel better. Now it's tradition to put presents underneath a decorated tree." The bear explained. The foreign quartet all made faces of surprised understanding, as that was certainly an interesting twist to a very similar tradition in other worlds. Then the bear got their attention by suddenly noticing something. "Oh! There are presents here that have special permission to be opened early! Let's see…they're addressed to Frisk, Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy Cricket…"

"Hey, that's us…!" Goofy pipped up. They were all curious as to why they had presents, since they were new to this world. It became obvious when they learned who the presents were from.

"Sansta? Heh, guess that little skeleton decided to play Santa just for you fellas. Well, here you go, you've got special permission to open them early, so you might as well open them now." The bear said as he passed the presents to them.

The group then sat in the snow in a little circle and promptly opened their presents in unison, as in unison as possible of course. Jiminy's present was tucked into Sora's so it wouldn't get lost. Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy all got sweaters, striped sweaters to be exact, though in Jiminy's case it was more of a colorful striped part of a sock that was stitched with arm tubes, and Frisk got the Manly Bandanna which had abs drawn on it. It was red, was well loved as it had seen some wear, and it had a name inscribed on the inside of it that Frisk had never noticed before, "Ephemera"…That was the name of the other Keyblade wielder that's been in the Underground before that Toriel had mentioned. Then they noticed something on the Tough Glove that wasn't there before either, just on the inside near the wrist to strap it securely, there was a name there too… "Skuld." Frisk glanced at Sora's gloves, maybe all Keyblade wielders had gloves, and maybe this, Skuld, was also a Keyblade wielder and was with Ephemera, but one of them made it out somehow…No, that couldn't be right, maybe the glove was a gift from Skuld, Papyrus did say never in the history of the Underground were there ever two humans at once, Toriel would've mentioned the other.

Frisk shook it off for now and then looked up from the bandanna and the glove to get a better look at everyone's very own striped sweaters. Sora's was red with dark green stripes. It went well with his plaid lapels that still stuck out. Donald got a sweater that was a darker blue than Frisk's and it had yellow stripes. Goofy was technically already wearing a sweater but with vertical black stripes. However, horizontal stripes is where it's at, but if Sans made these sweaters, then he got awful clever about how to handle Goofy's sweater. It was orange with green stripes like Sora's, and it had a low neck line so it wouldn't be suffocating his actual green sweater underneath. Last but not least was Jiminy's part of a sock with arms of a sweater, it was white with red stripes, and the arms were a little too big so he actually had to roll up the sleeves a bit.

Frisk smiled as they all put their sweaters on immediately (equipping them actually and it was a really good defense boost in stats). They all looked pretty good in them, even if they did look a _little_ silly. Frisk also couldn't help but silently chuckle at their little banter.

"Well, at least they aren't ugly Holiday sweaters, but I wouldn't put it past Sans to get us those too sometime." Donald quipped.

"Aw, it sure was nice of him to get us these. I wonder if he made them himself." Goofy said in awe and wonderment.

"Well, he is mysterious. Maybe he somehow knows how to use Stopza and made them while time around him was stopped." Sora mused.

"Ok, the Stopza part I can get behind, but that lazybones getting into knitting these? He had to have help…" Donald argued but then trailed off when he thought of a possible counter point to his own argument. So he turned to Frisk to state more than ask but needed a nod from the kid. "Unless Sans is the type who lies in wait until he's needed most because he may look lazy but he can get stuff done when need be." Frisk chuckled and nodded at him eagerly.

"Gotta say, these are mighty cozy and perfect to get the chill out for this crazy weather." Jiminy added in. Everyone else hummed in agreement.

"Hey, what did you get Frisk?" Sora asked upon finally noticing that Frisk got something completely different.

Frisk lifted up the bandanna with a smile to show off the abs on it, but then put on a serious face as they turned it around to point out the name written on it. They wisely decided not to show the others the other name on the glove, for in all honesty, the name could mean anything.

The remainder of the group gasped at the sight of the name on the bandanna, as they all recalled Toriel mentioning it being the name of another keyblade bearer who was here in the Underground many years before. Frisk could see it in the eyes of the others, they were all piecing things together already.

"Hey, Jiminy? Ephemera sounds more like a word right out of a dictionary than a name for someone, and Toriel said it was an unfortunate name…so what does it mean?" Sora asked.

"Well, she was right about it being unfortunate. As a word alone, it _means_ , something of no lasting significance. It's usually said in plural, being the equivalent to items that can easily be disposed of such as posters, paper items, tickets, etc. Now, hearing it as the name of somebody, I hate ta say it but it sounds like their fate was predetermined to not last." Jiminy explained slowly, also obviously piecing certain things together.

"Wonder what happened to 'im." Goofy quipped, not quite piecing things fully together, but he was in no way absolutely stupid. He just had the tendency to think completely outside the box more often than not. That and at the moment he didn't want to think the worst of what may have happened.

"Nothing good if his name is anything to go by, but we're gonna find out more for ourselves much later then aren't we, kid?" Donald replied, eying Frisk with a suspicious yet knowing look. Frisk solemnly nodded. Thus, Donald's suspicions were confirmed. The kid knew what happened to humans when they reached the Capital but they wouldn't say because it was just that bad. If they were going to learn of it fully on their own later then he wouldn't pressure the kid into telling them the whole truth. So he avoided the others into wondering what he was going on about by changing the subject completely. "Welp, I dunno 'bout you guys, but I've gotten hungrier all of a sudden, any place we can get something warm to eat, kid? As hungry as I am, I ain't desperate enough to eat this nice cream."

Frisk nodded eagerly and pointed to the shop over by the save points and next to the inn in the direction they came from to get into town. Frisk quickly equipped the Manly Bandanna and led them toward and into the shop, where they were greeted warmly by the bunny lady shop keeper.

"Hello travelers. Welcome to Snowdin! I can't remember the last time I saw a fresh set of faces around here. Where did you come from? The Capital? You don't really look like tourists…Oh but where are my manners? How can I help you?"

Thus, Frisk bought each of them a Cinnamon Bunny, a cinnamon bun in the shape of a bunny that happened to be the bunny lady shopkeeper's own recipe, which she announced proudly.

"What's there to do here?" Sora asked politely. It was a cute town, and up to this point they really hadn't seen many Heartless, so maybe they could properly sight-see for once.

"You want to know what to do here in Snowdin? Well, Grillby's has food, and the Library has information…If you're tired, you can take a nap at the inn. It's right next door – my sister runs it. And if you're bored, you can sit outside and watch those wacky skeletons do their thing. There's two of 'em…Brothers, I think. They just showed up one day and…asserted themselves. The town has gotten more interesting since then." The shopkeeper replied.

"What about the town's history?" Jiminy piped up, curious to know how things were established down here. It was amazing to say the least that caves were even this long and there was still a long ways to go before they were even all the way through. The shopkeeper looked at them skeptically, but they all looked like the type to have accidentally played hooky because of the puzzles and traps being set up near the Capital.

"Think back to your history class…A long time ago, Monsters lived in the Ruins back there in the forest. Long story short, we all decided to leave the Ruins and head for the end of the caverns. Along the way, some fuzzy folk decided they liked the cold and set up camp in Snowdin. Oh, and don't think about trying to explore the Ruins…The door's been locked for ages. So unless you're a ghost or can burrow under the door, forget about it." She told them.

"How's life otherwise?" Donald asked in an understanding tone. The shopkeeper chuckled with a half-hearted sigh before she replied.

"Life is about the same as usual. A little claustrophobic…But…we all know deep down that freedom is coming, don't we? As long as we got that hope, we can grit our teeth and face the same struggles day after day…That's life, ain't it?" She looked irritated when she said 'claustrophobic' but then she looked so hopeful for the future of getting out of the Underground that it was heartbreaking.

Donald had all sorts of chills going up his spine and it wasn't from the cold outside. He was still piecing things together after all, and though he knew from the confirmation with the kid that they'd learn directly what in Sam Hill was really going on down here later, Donald couldn't help but feel really uneasy with the way the shopkeeper worded how close they and the rest of Monster kind was to freedom. It was just…unsettling to say the least, and he had a pretty good idea as to why.

Regardless, to look normal, they all nodded their heads in agreement with her. Frisk decided to by some bicicles to fill up the rest of their inventory while they were at it. Two-in-one healing items were always a good bargain. Then they politely thanked her and left, hearing her call after them, "Bye now! Come again sometime!"

Once outside, it was then that Goofy remembered to tell the others something that only he noticed a long while back. "Ya know, the history part she told us just ain't the same without the beginning."

"How's that, Goofy?" Sora asked curiously.

"Well, back when we were still in Miss Toriel's place I looked through the book shelf when none of ya were lookin' and found a history book. It said somethin' about after being banished down here and fearing more attacks from the war, all the Monsters trudged on into the caverns as far as they could go. At the time I believe it was just the Ruins that they called "Home" and it mentioned that their king wasn't very good at making names." Goofy explained.

"Why am I not surprised?" Donald muttered but everyone heard it. He probably wasn't surprised because their own king wasn't all that great with names either, _technically_ , but there was some cleverness to it, he did name the town and the castle after Master Yen Sid, just reversing the spelling of course. "So, how good's the Inn?"

Frisk started moving their hands to reply, and Jiminy kept quiet for a bit, waiting for Frisk to finish. "Oh, you're gonna love this Donald. Frisk says staying at the Inn is a little on the pricey side, and isn't even worth the money anyway since there's a bunch of loud snorers in the room next to the one we'd be given."

"Yep, just our luck." Donald grumbled, then added for emphasis on the need to keep moving.

"However," Jiminy continued as Frisk continued signing. "Sleeping can recover your health **above your maximum HP**."

"Guess we'll just ta find a really good place to nap then if the Inn isn't very good." Goofy quipped.

"Anyone tired otherwise? No? Good, let's get going, if we sleep out here in the cold we'll die of hypothermia. We'll nap when we reach the next area that isn't covered in snow." Donald grumbled leading the way a bit before Sora and the rest caught up to him.

There was an igloo right next to the Inn with a sign next to it that basically said the igloo tunneled clear to the other side of town. Well they were sightseeing, so they left it be for now. They passed by the bunny guy who was weirded out for some unknown reason by the bunny girl across the way walking what they assumed was her pet bunny. Frisk didn't have the heart to tell them it was her little brother that she was walking on a leash, so the bunny guy was quite justified for feeling weirded out. Around the other side of the decorated tree, they encountered a little Monster Kid that was yellow and lizard like, almost dinosaur like, and it didn't help that they had no arms. They also wore a striped shirt, but what they said, shocked the foreign quartet a little.

"Yo! You're all kids too, right? I can tell 'cause you're all wearing striped shirts."

"Actually, out of all of us, Frisk here is the kid, the rest of us are just kids at heart." Sora explained, patting Frisk on the head and mussing their hair a little for emphasis.

"Yo! That's cool too! Not many grown-ups can pull off the kid at heart look, not even Undyne! But it looks great on you guys!" Monster Kid complimented. They all thanked Monster kid before they continued on, heading towards the bear outside of Grillby's.

"Wait…" Sora said, pausing them all as a flicker of familiarity passed by his eyes. "Didn't Papyrus mention someone named Undyne before?"

"Come tuh think of it, he did! Right before he realized that you and Frisk were humans." Goofy added, as he also remembered what Sora was referring to.

"Alright, kid. Who's Undyne?" Donald asked in deadpan, already getting the feeling that Frisk wouldn't give a straight answer because they were all probably going to meet Undyne soon enough.

Frisk signed and finished very quickly, but Jiminy was hesitant on answering. When the other three frantically looked between the child and the cricket on their head, Jiminy finally relented with a sigh. "No one we want to mess with right now."

As soon as it sunk in to everyone, Donald was the one to quip triumphantly, "FINALLY! Someone to keep our guard up and our wits about us on!"

Everyone else just sighed Donald's name in exasperation, then they finally got around to talking to that bear just outside of Grillby's who did indeed have an interesting tidbit to say.

"This town doesn't have a mayor. But if there's ever a problem, a skeleton will tell a fish lady about it. Thaaaaaat's politics."

The group looked at Frisk again and all of them mouthed Undyne's name in suspicion. Frisk simply nodded, Jiminy had to hold on to a tuft of hair because he wasn't ready for the sudden head movement. They all made faces of awkward understanding, the kind that was more like a frowny face than anything, and went ahead to go on into Grillby's.

Grillby's was a quite the welcoming sort of environment. If there were more seats they would've surely sat down for a bite, and in that moment they remembered that Frisk bought them all cinnamon bunnies, but they couldn't eat them while they were here. This was obviously a diner and they didn't want to incur the wrath of the owner for bringing in outside food just to eat it. They decided to actually eat later as they looked around and talked to people. In two separate booth seats were a really dizzy looking bunny and a monster with an enormous mouth full of teeth. The bunny wanted different kinds of food than what was constantly on the menu and…hot guys…

The monster with the mouthful of teeth desperately wanted to try human food since it was vastly different from Monster food, as human food spoils and passes all the way through the body, though the monster commented that it was a disgusting thought, they'd love to try it anyway. The bartender was a monster made of fire, but it was obvious that they were a monster of few words, the bird monster in the stool beside the open space left to talk to the bartender somewhat translated that "Grillbz says he'd offer you all a glass of water, but he doesn't touch the stuff." The group gave a little wave of complete understanding, and the avian monster spoke again, with a nudge of their head in the direction of all the dog soldiers they had encountered on their way to Snowdin. "Those dogs are part of the Royal Guard, the elite military group led by Undyne." This got their attention so the monster elaborated. "She's rude, loud, and beats up everybody who gets in her way…It's no wonder all the kids want to be like her when they grow up!"

Next to the bird monster was none other than the weird looking monster from the photo on the fishing line, apparently they were dead set on making out with a fish, hence why they were fishing for one. They would need all the luck in the world to achieve a goal such as that. Then the group went all around the table talking to the dog squad, starting with the married couple. Dogaressa wanted one of the skeletons to throw them a bone, because dogs like bones, and Dogamy warned them about wherever they decided to sit, otherwise Greater Dog WOULD jump into their laps and give lots of love and attention. Doggo wanted a spiked collar, the kind that said they were willing to be on a leash and be walked. Greater Dog was at the moment…Greater Dog, with a lovely deep sounding bark and all. Lesser Dog was playing poker against itself…and was somehow losing. To the dog's credit, it was probably just as easy to lose at solitaire. Last but not least was the grey furred hamster guy with the green hair and the shades over in the corner by the broken jukebox. They were worried about the people from the Capital moving in because it was getting too crowded over there, they didn't want to see the erasure of Snowdin's culture. But they eased some of their own worries by saying that they wanted to see some city slickers slip onto their butts.

The group exited Grillby's and pulled out their cinnamon bunnies to eat, while still walking and sightseeing, passing by the somber mouse like monster with the scarf that was too big as they lamented the problems of the Underground, which consisted of dreariness, crowding, and lack of sunlight, while the red monster with the horns standing next to them was the polar opposite. After all why not smile, especially when there's nothing better to do?

The group then took a left and came upon a little, literal rock family, the two kids were playing monsters and humans, one of them even wondered if the humans played something a little different, not knowing that humans probably played the same thing too but with reversed context. The papa rock, as evidenced by his luxurious mustache, was wistful about being young again, and mama rock was just inside the house and really liked Frisk's knock, patiently waiting to see if she'd hear its beauty again. Frisk knocked again and she sighed blissfully at her reward. Then the gang went across the way from the rock family's yard and watched Ice Wolf chuck big cubes of ice into the river. Frisk explained through Jiminy's translations that the ice goes all the way to the Capital, to help cool down the Core.

They then went up the path they had originally been going up and came to the river, but received yet another weird phone call. "Hello! Can I speak to G…Wait a second. Is this the wrong number? _Oh it's the wrong number! The wrong number song! We're very very sorry that we got it wrong! Oh it's the wrong number! The wrong number song! We're very very sorry that we got it wrong!_ " Then whoever was on the other end hung up. So they headed back and went into the Library, noticing the sign was misspelled and had an extra 'b' before the 'y'. Inside they were welcomed by the librarian who was well aware of the mistake in the sign. The other monsters there at the library were the very ladies responsible for writing articles and making the word puzzles such as the word search. One of them was even somehow aware that they thought Junior Jumble was difficult, they glanced at Frisk, but they just shrugged. Some things just could never be explained.

They all then scoured the bookshelves, one was an interesting little book report on monster funerals, and they learned that when monsters die, they turn to dust, and that dust is traditionally spread on that monster's favorite thing, then their essence will live on in that thing. On the shelf next to this little book report, more sense was made of the differences between humans and monsters. Monsters were mostly made of magic, while humans were mostly made of water. Humans were therefore, stronger than monsters. However, humans would never know the joy of expressing themselves through magic. They'd never get a bullet patterned birthday card. The book on the next shelf was just a little drabble of what people do in a library, and was not quite finished yet by the yellow monster lady just behind them. The next book in the next shelf had more back story though. "Because they are made of magic, monsters' bodies are attuned to their Soul. If a monster doesn't want to fight, its defenses will weaken. And the cruller the intentions of our enemies, the more their attacks will hurt us. Therefore, if a being with a powerful Soul struck with the desire to kill…"

"Um…Let's end the chapter here, guys." Sora offered, no one had any objections as they all wanted to avoid the sudden dark turn that was going in. "Let's see what the next one's about, shall we?"

The next one was Monster History Part 4, a quick glance and translation from Frisk told them that they weren't missing anything. So they read on… "Fearing the humans no longer, we moved out of our old city, Home. We braved harsh cold, damp swampland, and searing heat…Until we reached what we now call our Capital. 'New Home.' Again, our king is really bad at names…?"

The final book in the last shelf was quite the last hurrah of lore for now, as it followed… "Love, hope, compassion…This is what people believe monster Souls are made of. But the absolute nature of 'Soul' is unknown. After all, humans have proven their Souls don't need these things to exist."

Another one turned dark in the end…The group took it in stride though, as it's best to learn from the mistakes of the past to ensure that history won't repeat itself. So they all took note of it at the very least.

They left the Library and continued onward… but of all things they ran into…A Moogle shop! Right outside the Library and just before the next building.

"Frisk! This is the Moogle shop I was telling you about back in the Ruins! C'mon guys, let's go see what he's selling!" Sora exclaimed rather excitedly, and then ran over to the Moogle shop. The Moogle itself was wearing a rather fluffy coat, that oddly enough, looked like a smaller version of Sans' coat.

"Greetings, kupo. This world is so easy to fit into, kupo. Are you here to shop, kupo? Have a look, kupo, at my wondrous wares." The Moogle shop keeper greeted.

There were only a few things of notice that were different from the last world's Moogle shop, and Sora picked up on them right away and bought accordingly.

"Cool Blizzagas already! One for me and one for you Donald. Let's see…Oh cool! Friendship Bracelets for everyone!" He said in glee, passing out the extra Blizzaga to Donald and the Friendship Bracelets to both the duck and Goofy, which was a secondary equip-able armor for the foreign trio. They were all a patterned the same way with all of the highlighter colors, and they **GREATLY** increased defense _surprisingly_ across the board, from standard defense increase through all the magic defenses by 90% for _**everything**_. Plus, they were surprisingly cheap at 25 munny a pop, it was such a steal that it had to be a weird side effect from this world. Sora got one for Frisk too, since they were Friendship Bracelets, and technically they were friends. Though it didn't count anywhere for Frisk to have it as an equip-able item, Sora managed to tie it onto Frisk's wrist anyway. "There you go, Frisk. This way you'll know that we'll always be friends, no matter what."

Frisk looked up and smiled brilliantly at Sora, and then hugged him, and then it became a group hug. Even Jiminy flattened himself on Frisk's head, reaching as far as he could to any of the others to help emphasize that it was a group hug. After several seconds Frisk pulled away, tapping the top of their own head to get Jiminy's attention.

"Frisk says that Papyrus is just past that house up ahead…The thing is, where Papyrus is, is a misty area where it's hard to see. And we haven't seen any Heartless in a long while, so if there's any chance for an ambush of Heartless, it would be there." Jiminy translated.

"Alright, we'll put our guard up then. Let's hope we don't end up with too much of a hassle on our hands." Sora told Frisk with confidence, completely ignoring Donald's muttered but still heard 'finally' at the fact that they'd all be keeping their guard up.

So with all in agreement they carried on, noticing as they passed by the house, that it actually belonged to the skeleton brothers. Sans' mailbox was full of junk mail, while Papyrus' mailbox was sadly empty. They decided to do him a kindness by writing a small little note, and Sora quickly went back to the Moogle Shop to get another set of Friendship Bracelets for both of the skeletons. The note didn't say much, just that the bracelets were for the brothers and they and the rest of the group would always be friends along with little pictures of all of their heads and smiling faces. They decided to leave the mailbox half open so that it would be noticed easier.

The two-story house was adorable, it was all lit up with red and green holiday lights, and even had a pirate flag at the very top, most likely because all pirate flags have skeleton faces on them. There was also a little shed, and the other igloo to get to and from clear across town was between the house and the shed. Frisk, through another series of Jiminy's translations, explained that the shed is where Papyrus would take them if they were actually captured.

Finally they continued again, hearing the giant ice cubes floating in the river virtually beside them just on the other side of the trees, and then they came upon the icy mist, eventually running into Papyrus. Not that they could hardly see him, just his silhouette at best. But they certainly could hear him anyway.

"HUMANS AND THEIR FRIENDS. ALLOW ME TO TELL YOU ABOUT SOME COMPLEX FEELINGS. FEELINGS LIKE…THE JOY OF FINDING OTHER PASTA LOVERS. THE ADMIRATION OF ANOTHER'S PUZZLE SOLVING SKILLS. THE DESIRE TO HAVE A COOL, SMART PERSON THINK YOU ARE COOL. THESE FEELINGS…THEY MUST BE WHAT YOU ARE FEELING RIGHT NOW! I CAN HARDLY IMAGINE WHAT IT MUST BE LIKE TO FEEL THAT WAY. AFTER ALL, I AM VERY GREAT. I DON'T EVER WONDER WHAT HAVING LOTS OF FRIENDS IS LIKE…OR MAYBE I DO SOMETIMES….I ENVY YOU… LUCKY HUMANS…WORRY NOT! FOR YOUR FRIEND NUMBERS WILL GROW LARGER YET! FOR I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL BE ANOTHER ONE OF YOUR…" Papyrus then hesitated in his declaration, turning away as if he wasn't supposed to be declaring anything at all. Which in all fairness was true. He was supposed to capture them, but by doing so he was also not to even make the slightest of acquaintances…He was just too nice for his own good. "NO…NO, THIS IS ALL WRONG! I CAN'T BE YOUR FRIEND!"He turned back towards them defiantly. "YOU TWO ARE HUMANS! I'M MUST CAPTURE YOU! THEN, I CAN FULFILL MY LIFELONG DREAM! POWERFUL! POPULAR! PRESTIGIOUS! THAT'S PAPYRUS! THE NEWEST MEMBER…OF THE ROYAL GUARD!" He roared triumphantly.

However, before he could do anything that led to our heroes ending up in one of those white walled battles. Something else manifested in the icy mist that in all honesty shouldn't have. Frisk recognized the shape of it right away but naturally was shocked that it was even here…in this timeline, this early. Frisk knew it only as a Gaster Blaster, but something was off about it.

The Gaster Blaster let out a roar to the ceiling, which sounded more like the lowest note possible to come out of a machine as it simultaneously spat out a long laser that was so hot that it dissipated the mist. With the mist gone, it was obvious that the Gaster Blaster wasn't even a normal one, it was a Heartless as indicated by its dark sheen and the red symbol on its forehead. And upon remembering what Sora had told them about Heartless that sometimes they can be manifested from someone's darkness, Frisk knew exactly whose it was, and it was not from the skeleton that is currently present.

Frisk didn't hesitate and ran for Papyrus, grabbing his wrist and dragging him just as quickly to get behind the others and further still to a safer area. Papyrus himself was wise enough to not question it, as his brother had warned him about strange black creatures that occasionally had red symbols on them that were not to be trusted under any circumstances. The fact that this one looked just like his secret weapon and his brother's had him a little taken aback. Still, he didn't call it, and since it had that red symbol on it just like his brother had described he knew that it wouldn't play nice, thus he let the smaller of the two humans drag him away from something that could potentially be a danger.

"You know the drill, Frisk! Stay safe!" Sora called out as Frisk and Papyrus passed by him, Donald, and Goofy. He just managed to see Frisk nod furiously at the corner of his eye before turning to the task at hand.

The Heartless Gaster Blaster was a decently large size, about as big as the Shadow Stalker from Beast's Castle, and no doubt just as tough by the looks of it. The trinity trio got to work as soon as they were sure that Frisk and Papyrus were safe, which Donald gave the signal for because he kept an eye on them. On the okay to go, all three of them charged ahead, thankful that when the Gaster Blaster blasted its lasers, it was slow moving, but they quickly learned that on the occasion that it blasted a blue laser from its mouth, the same don't move for blue rules applied. It was weak to all kinds of magic so that helped greatly, and they even got outside help from who knows where, as Sora's Soul was latched onto, turned blue, but positively, to give him an extra boost in the air for the final blow, as Sora jammed his keyblade right into the red symbol on the skull. The Gaster Blaster Heartless was defeated into a large dark puff of smoke, surprisingly though, no heart dissipated with it.

The trio breathed a sigh of relief when all was said and done. Just because the fight was easy enough doesn't mean that they didn't break a sweat in the process. They stretched whatever kinks they could, and turned back to start looking for Frisk and Papyrus to let them know that the danger was over.

They found the duo just coming out of the house.

"HUMAN, IF YOU EVER NEED TO REACH ME…HERE'S MY **PHONE NUMBER**. YOU CAN CALL ME ANYTIME! PLATONICALLY. NYEH HEH HEH!" With that directed at Frisk, he turned and noticed Sora and the others, and waved ecstatically at them. "OTHER HUMAN! DID YOU TAKE CARE OF THAT NOT VERY NICE CREATURE THAT SUSPICIOUSLY LOOKED LIKE MINE AND MY BROTHER'S SPECIAL ATTACK?"

"Uh, yeah. It's gone now. It won't hurt anybody anymore." Sora worded carefully. Papyrus really didn't seem like the type to even like violence, nor like the idea that defeated could also mean destroyed.

"WOWIE! THANK YOU BIGGER HUMAN! WOULD YOU ALL LIKE TO BE MY FRIENDS AS WELL?" Papyrus asked innocently, addressing Donald and Goofy as well at his last sentence.

"Sure thing."

"Ahyuck! Of course!"

"Absolutely!"

"Just don't forget to check your mailbox. You might actually have gotten some mail today." Sora advised.

"MY MAILBOX?" Papyrus questioned curiously. He then turned and dashed over to his mailbox, and looked inside. He found the little note and the two bracelets that were meant for him and his brother. He must've read the note over a dozen times because he just stood there looking dumbfounded and flabbergasted. Then without much warning, Papyrus burst into happy tears with a loud 'NYOO HOO HOO' and ran back over to scoop the whole gang into a group hug. "THIS IS THE BESTEST, MOST SINCEREST PRESENT I HAVE EVER GOTTEN! THANK YOU ALL! I ONLY SAW ONE IN THERE BUT I KNOW HOW MY BROTHER IS SO HE PROBABLY ALREADY GOT HIS." He said upon releasing them after a few seconds, and taking several steps back for dramatic purpose. "BUT ANYWAY, I HEREBY GRANT YOU ALL PERMISSION TO PASS ON THROUGH! AND I'LL GIVE YOU DIRECTIONS TO THE SURFACE. CONTINUE FORWARD UNTIL YOU REACH THE END OF THE CAVERN. THEN… WHEN YOU REACH THE CAPITAL, CROSS **THE BARRIER**. THAT'S THE MAGICAL SEAL TRAPPING US ALL UNDERGROUND. ANYTHING CAN ENTER THROUGH IT, BUT NOTHING CAN EXIT…EXCEPT SOMEONE WITH A POWERFUL SOUL….LIKE YOU TWO HUMANS! THAT'S WHY THE KING WANTS TO AQUIRE A HUMAN. HE WANTS TO OPEN THE BARRIER WITH SOUL POWER. THEN US MONSTERS CAN RETURN TO THE SURFACE! OH, I ALMOST FORGOT TO TELL YOU… TO REACH THE EXIT, YOU WILL HAVE TO PASS… THROUGH **THE KING** 'S CASTLE **. THE KING OF ALL MONSTERS… HE IS…WELL…** HE'S A BIG FUZZY PUSHOVER! EVERYBODY LOVES THAT GUY. I AM CERTAIN IF YOU JUST SAY… 'EXCUSE ME, MR. DREEMURR… CAN I PLEASE GO HOME?' HE'LL GUIDE YOU RIGHT TO THE BARRIER HIMSELF! ANYWAY! THAT'S ENOUGH TALKING! I HAVE TO GO REPORT TO UNDYNE ABOUT HOW I FAILED TO CAPTURE YOU BECAUSE OF UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCES! FEEL FREE TO VISIT MY HOUSE ANYTIME! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!" With that, Papyrus did a weird walking leap right over them, and dashed on ahead and into the further caverns.

Despite how innocently Papyrus had put it, the implications of how to free the monsters by breaking the barrier were piecing together rather darkly and rather quickly. Yet despite the dark implications piecing together throughout the whole group, Sora in particular was distracted by one detail completely unrelated to the barrier and simply had to voice his question as soon as Papyrus was out of sight.

"So Frisk, why'd he give you his phone number?"

Jiminy spoke for the child without even needing to translate anything, since he was still with Frisk the whole time. "Well, while you three were taking care of that Heartless, Frisk flirted with Papyrus only a little bit and ended up going on a date with him just like that. It didn't do much for Papyrus though so it's just friends for now. But Papyrus gave us his phone number anyway, and we can call him anytime."

After Jiminy finished explaining, Frisk all but dragged Sora and the others inside, just to show them what they missed out on, and Jiminy relented in repeating anything Papyrus had mentioned about certain things. Things such as the fact that Sans had taken up baking and at one point had managed to bake a quiche, and the reason the kitchen sink was so tall was so the bottom cabinet could hold more bones, and when Papyrus offered Frisk and Jiminy a looksy they found a dog hiding in there with what apparently wasn't an ordinary bone but actually was Papyrus' special attack, they tried to capture it but to no avail. There was also Sans' pet rock that was covered in sprinkles because Papyrus always ends up feeding it, the series of foot notes between Sans and Papyrus over by the sock that Sans refused to pick up, judging by the notes, and finally the MTT channel that promised a new program would be coming soon, the show itself was Papyrus' favorite.

Then they went upstairs into Papyrus' bedroom, because Sans' room was locked, but only after having fun with the joke book having a quantum physics book inside and another joke book inside that and so on. Inside Papyrus' bed room they marveled at the awesome flame bordered carpet and the sweet red race car bed, chuckling at Jiminy repeating Papyrus' little pipe dream that since it was a pipe dream that instead he settled to cruise while he snoozed. They figured right away that Papyrus secretly does like puns despite his frustration at his brother and his own denial. They then marveled at Papyrus' action figure collection, and Jiminy repeating the fact that Papyrus got them from Santa.

"Cool! Santa comes to this world too?" Sora wondered aloud. Frisk cringed and sucked in a breath that didn't go unnoticed. When asked about it Frisk signed a reluctant answer, and Jiminy translated just as slowly.

"The king has a Santa suit in his closet…Well that explains why the bear said Sans decided to play Santa for us."

"Aw, don't you worry none, Frisk. Santa really does exist, he's just in a different world entirely." Goofy said soothingly, and put a comforting hand on the child's shoulder.

"Yeah, maybe we can go see him together after all this is all over." Sora added with optimism.

"Sora, you know why we can't do that." Donald stepped in, trying to be the voice of reason, knowing that the growing boy would probably shoot the same argument from when they first got here about the balance of the worlds.

"Why not? I'm from a different world, and Frisk is totally small enough to fit in the Gummi Ship with us." Sora shot back. Donald opened his mouth and held out a wagging finger, but found he couldn't really argue with that logic.

"So, what's with the pirate flag?" Goody asked to change the subject.

"Papyrus said Undyne found it, and our new skeleton friend even has a cute theory that humans are descended from skeletons." Jiminy explained without skipping a beat.

"Huh, that's an interesting way to look at it…but at least it's pretty close." Sora quipped in contemplation.

Last but certainly not least was Papyrus' computer and the fact that of all of Papyrus' negative two follower count, there's a troll who has besieged Papyrus' online persona who always sends terrible puns in a silly font. Naturally, only one other skeleton came to mind, and the irony was endearing.

Having explored all that they could in the house with Jiminy translating that Sans' bedroom would be open to them at a later time when the time was right, they left the house and continued onward past the point where they were about to have some kind of fight with Papyrus but instead battled the Gaster Blaster Heartless. The change of scenery in the next cavern was immediate. From bright snow to darker lighting with waterfalls off to one side, and being parallel to the giant ice cube as it flowed down the river on the other, that is until the river took a left while the group continued going straight. There were also crystal like minerals on the ground and jutting out of the walls.

In the next area they found the little Monster Kid who complimented their sweaters from before, a weird salmon-orange fish guy with a light blue shirt that had the same salmon-orange color of a standard fish on it, and he had sunglasses for some reason, all while standing next to a cool looking blue flower, and most surprisingly was the sight of Sans and his sentry booth, which still had snow on it even though it was considerably warmer here, though still felt damp. There was also a set of save points, but they saved that for later…ha, saved…fine ignore the narration pun, let's continue shall we?

They talked to the Monster Kid first, to see what he was doing here all of a sudden. And his answer was both helpful though also a little worrying.

"Yo! Are you sneaking out to see her, too? Awesome…She's the coolest, right!? I wanna be just like her when I grow up… Hey, don't tell my parents I'm here. Ha ha."

Naturally they all looked at Frisk who confirmed their guess, as Frisk mouthed out Undyne's name and nodded. Obviously Undyne was somewhere in the depths of this section, and soon they were going to run into her. It was a little unsettling.

So to ease any worries they had, they decided to go talk to the fish guy, who explained that the blue flower next to him was called an Echo Flower, and could repeat the last thing it heard over and over. They touched the flower after he finished and word for word, the flower said the exact same thing. "Neat, huh?" Said the fish guy. One of them touched the flower again, and it said 'Neat, huh?' as well. For fits and giggles though, Frisk dragged everyone back out of the area where they came in from and then back into the room, and opted to touch the Echo Flower first. This time it repeated something different from the fish guy.

"All that gives my life validation is explaining the Echo Flower…No one can know…" A little weirded out by how that ended they talked to the fish guy again, who dropped his happy mask entirely as he replied, "Never trust a flower…That's one of the constants of this world."

"Amen to that!" Donald happily agreed, loud enough that the Echo Flower picked it up as evidenced from Frisk touching it for a laugh. It did indeed repeat what Donald said. The duck got dirty looks from everyone else but Frisk and Goofy.

Finally they went over to talk to Sans, who was as entertaining as ever. "what? haven't seen a guy with two jobs before? fortunately, two jobs means twice as many legally required breaks. i'm going to grillby's. wanna come?"

The group looked at each other, contemplating, then at Frisk who nodded at all of them, so simultaneously they agreed to Sans, who comically took their response in a different direction.

"well, if you insist…i'll pry myself away from work…" He said cheekily as he came out from behind the counter and headed in the direction that the group would be going in before he turned around back to them to add one more thing. "over here. i know a shortcut." So they all followed him, already knowing that his shortcuts were weird upon first meeting him. Between one blink and the next and within a few steps, they found themselves inside Grillby's right by the door. "fast shortcut, huh?" Sans quipped, his cheekiness never faltering. Then he addressed everyone else that was in the diner. "hey everyone."

"Hey, Sans." Greeted Dogamy.

"(Hi, Sans)." Greeted Dogaressa.

"Greetings, Sans." Greeted the monster in the booth with a mouth full of teeth.

"Hiya, Sansy~" Greeted the dizzy looking bunny in the other booth.

The group walked with Sans further toward the bar stools, when Sans was greeted by the bird monster who tends to translate for Grillby or Grillbz as this particular monster likes to call him.

"Hey Sans, weren't you just here for breakfast a few minutes ago?"

"nah, i haven't had breakfast in at least a half an hour. you must be thinking of brunch." A rim shot from nowhere was heard, Sans comically posed with a casual shrug, and everyone in the diner laughed. Then Sans glanced back to his guests. "here, get comfy." Sans took one seat, but there was only one other empty seat left, but plenty of standing room right on the corner of the bar.

So Sora sat down with Frisk in his lap and Donald and Goofy took the standing room at the open space in the corner of the bar. Of course, as soon as Sora sat down the sound of a wet fart resounded, thankfully it was shorter than when having to shake Sans' hand but still…Donald and Goofy both started laughing, Frisk smirked knowingly, Jiminy slapped a hand to his face in embarrassment, and Sora teasingly glared at the culprit.

"whoops, watch where you sit down. sometimes weirdos put whoopee cushions on the seats. anyway, let's order. whaddaya want?" Sans asked, dodging quite the bullet by changing the subject, whether he knew it or not one couldn't say. In any case, there was only a choice of fries or burgers for all of them to choose from. They all opted for fries because that was easier to share among friends. "pretty good choice there fellas. grillby, we'll have a triple order of fries and one burg." Grillby left to go make the order, and Sans muttered that the burger was for him while he pulled out a comb and combed his skull. "So, what do you fellas think… of my brother?"

"He's pretty cool!"

"He's a cool skelly alright, ahyuck!"

"Coolest of the cool of Snowdin."

"Well, he's a cool dude alright."

Double thumbs up from Frisk.

"of course he's cool. you'd all be cool too if you wore that outfit every day. he'd only take that thing off if he absolutely had to. oh well. at least he washes it. and by that i mean he wears it in the shower." Sans told them as a matter-of-factly. Then Grillby came out with their orders. "here comes the grub. Want some ketchup, guys?" Sans offered a bottle for each batch of fries. Sora and Goofy went for it, but Donald was suspicious of the offer and declined.

"bone apatite. and more for me, duck." Sans winked and did a little cheers motion at Donald since he refused his bottle of ketchup. So Sans gulped the whole bottle of ketchup down, leaving the duck slightly disgusted since he was the only one who noticed. Sora, with Frisk's extra help, and Goofy tipped up their respective ketchup bottles…the cap falls off and all the ketchup in the bottles poured into their food. Thankfully it was only a half-bottle of ketchup for both batches, so they weren't absolutely covered in ketchup gobbledygook. "whoops. eh, forgeddaboudit. you can have mine. i'm not that hungry anyway."

"Oh, no ya don't Sans. We'll still eat our fries, they're not that badly covered, but don't you dare waste food like that. Get it to go if you're really not that hungry." Sora said adamantly. The others could swear they heard Grillby chuckle as he went to get a take home box at Sans' visual signal of the eyes.

"He's right, Sans. Wasting food like that is an absolute sin in our book. Just be careful about that when you get to the surface, you never know who you might insult with a habit as bad as that." Jiminy added as he politely chewed on the smallest fry Frisk could fish out before the ketchup came down on the fries. "Compliments to the chef!" Jiminy tipped his hat at Grillby. Grillby nodded in thanks as he brought over the take home box for Sans, a devious glint of absolute amusement in the skeleton's direction.

"thanks for the reminder. i'll keep it in mind for future reference. in fact, i just might add it to my foot notes." Sans started solemnly sounding at first, then he sounded more like himself when he added the little inside joke that the group did end up getting and snickered at even as a few of them had fries in their mouths. With the group's spirits back in order and definitely not mad at him about the waste of food anymore, he continued. "anyway, cool or not, you have to agree papyrus tries real hard. like how he keeps trying to be part of the royal guard. one day, he went to the house of the head of the royal guard…and begged her to let him be in it. of course, she shut the door on him because it was midnight. but the next day, she woke up and saw him still waiting there. seeing his dedication, she decided to give him warrior training. it's, uh, still a work in progress."

Suddenly it felt as if the atmosphere around them died down as Sans continued in a thoughtful tone. "oh yeah, i wanted to ask you guys something." Then it felt as if the world around them melted away and they were put on the spot by what he was going to ask, it almost felt as if they were under an actual spotlight even. "have you ever heard of a talking flower?" A chill went up all of their spines and they looked to Frisk on how to answer, the child nodded so they simply did the same to gauge Sans' reaction. "so you guys know all about it…" They all gulped. "the **echo flower**." They all breathed out as silently as they could so it wasn't an obvious sigh of relief, and kept eating to further keep up a calm exterior. "they're all over the marsh. say something into them, and they'll repeat it over and over…what about it?" Sans asked for them and their questioning gazes. "well, papyrus told me something interesting the other day. sometimes when no one else is around…a flower appears and whispers things to him. flattery…advice…encouragement…predictions." The last word came out a little heavy, and they all gulped again, whether he took notice of it now, he didn't show. "weird, huh? Someone must be using an echo flower to play a trick on him. keep an eye out ok?" They all nodded as they finished their fries. "thanks."

Then it felt as if the spotlight that had been put on them had vanished, the atmosphere was back to normal, and Sans stood up with his take home box and stretched a little. "whelp, that was a long break. i can't believe i let ya pull me away from work for that long. oh, by the way…i'm flat broke. can you foot the bill? it's just 10000G." They all knew right away that he was teasing them again, just like with the fried snow, so for fun they humored him again and said they would. "just kidding. grillby, put it on my tab." He called back and walk all the way to the door until he had an afterthought. "by the way…" He hesitated as if he lost his train of thought, which turned out to be true. "…i was going to say something, but i forgot." With that, he was out the door.

The group really wanted to breathe out a sigh of relief but it was obvious that Sans and Grillby were old friends so they weren't going to chance it. They did actually manage to foot the bill though. They had the 10000 in munny, and because of the influence of the Moogle, Grillby accepted it. That would certainly be a pleasant surprise for Sans.

Since everyone else in the diner was pleased to see Sans come in, the group decided to go for another round of talking to everyone.

"Sans is a sentry, but don't let his title make you think he does anything. Everyone knows he sits around in the forest reading car magazines." Said the bird monster who likes to translate for Grillby. He did translate that Grillby appreciated that the group enjoyed the food and defended its honor in the face of Sans' terrible habit of leaving it be half the time, and for paying off the tab.

The creepy fish monster that badly wanted to kiss a fish, said that Sans was the most regular regular of all. However, he hadn't been showing up as much recently.

"Huh? Since when did you and Sans become friends…?" Asked Doggo in utter confusion. "I don't like him…He loves to appear without moving."

The married dog couple had hopes that Sans would feed them table scraps or give them a pat on the head, and the dizzy looking bunny monster obviously enjoyed Sans' company as he apparently made everything more fun. The group couldn't deny that one.

Finally there was the monster with the mouth full of teeth, who was entertained by Sans' vast knowledge of all kinds of food, but despite his knowledge, he always orders the worst burger off the menu…Sora felt a little bad after hearing that. But Donald cheered him up by saying that Sans had it coming especially if Grillby was proud of that moment.

The hamster guy by the jukebox didn't have anything new to say so they all left Grillby's and walked all the way back to where they were, and heard Sans, who was still at his station here in Waterfall, quip, "Let's hang out again sometime." Before they finally saved.

 _ **The sound of rushing water filled them all with determination**_.


	7. Bad Dreams and Living Nightmares in Waterfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang finally enters Waterfall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it's been a while, but you know how it is... Anyway, huge warning for this particular chapter and I do deeply apologize but it was necessary... I make a mention of blood and it's pretty graphic imagery for how brief it is, but it should be kind of expected because of WHERE it is...you'll see as you read it. Again, I'm sorry, but it had to be done at some point.

"let's hang out again sometime." Sans had told them with a wink.

After they saved, the group decided to continue on, and as they passed by Sans' booth he waved at them and they happened to notice a familiar series of highlighter colors at his wrist which of course shimmied down from the movement and gravity. Everyone was happy to see that he got his Friendship Bracelet after all and waved back happily.

In the next area they found themselves near some waterfalls, instantly understanding the name of this section of caverns. They came across another box though this one had a sign next to it much like the first time. The sign started out similarly to the first sign, explaining the basics of the box's purpose, then it was obvious that the sign was written by someone who was the polar opposite of whoever wrote the first sign as it declared " **Why would you though? You can't use items when they're in the box! Sincerely, a box hater**." It was amusing at the very least, and Frisk for the most part ignored it as they put a couple of bisicles and the ribbon, that they forgot that they still had on them, in the box, knowing what they would find soon.

The group had seen an Echo Flower a little ways away down a board walk, so they decided to go check it out. When they reached the flower and touched it, they were intrigued by what it repeated from whoever spoke near it last. Something about seeing something…behind that rushing water…. Well there were two waterfalls to choose from, the one closest to them now and the one just a slight level above where they were next to the box.

They decided to check this closest one, and were a little disturbed by what they found… a camera behind the waterfall. They were being watched…

Frisk gave a little wave with a very tiny smile while the others bantered about it.

"Well that's a little weird. What's a camera doing in a waterfall? Wouldn't it not work from all that water?" Sora asked.

"It's called waterproofing, Sora. Not to mention it's behind the waterfall, and it's probably right on a nick where the flow of the water won't soak it nor touch it at all. Plus, the flow of the water itself flows smoothly enough that it's a really good spot to stick a camera like that…But I agree that is a little creepy." Donald countered, feeling the need to explain water physics while he was at it.

"Why sure it's creepy, but it makes sense once ya think about it." Goofy mused aloud. They all turned to give him a look.

"Alright, Goof, I'll bite. Why does it make sense?" Donald prodded in a deadpan tone, but was genuinely curious by Goofy's musings.

"Well they're lookin' fer humans ain't they? So wouldn't that mean they would need the cameras to spot where they're goin'?" Goofy replied. The reasons he gave were quite understandable, simple, but otherwise very reasonable.

"You probably know who's on the other side of the screen, don't you Frisk?" Donald asked somewhat knowingly. He knew the kid wouldn't answer directly but he still had to make sure.

Frisk nodded with a smile and started signing as Jiminy dutifully translated. "Sure do. They're really nice, but I can't tell you who it is because, what's life without surprises?"

"Fair enough." Donald replied, then came up with another question. "Is there anything better up in the other waterfall?"

"Sure is, it's even a great place to take that nap." Jiminy translated after Frisk nodded again.

"Alright! Let's go!" Sora shouted excitedly, leading the way in a burst of speed up the board walk.

All together they dodged a few rocks and dashed into the hole in the waterfall, hoping to get as least wet as possible.

"These sweaters better not shrink on us as they dry." Donald quipped forebodingly, wiping off any water droplets he could find and even gave a shake like a real dog.

"Ugh, I forgot that was even a thing!" Sora complained in response, doing much the same as Donald, the others also did their best to dry themselves from the brief lapse of water.

"I don't think they will. They don't feel like the kind of material to end up shrinking after getting a little wet." Goofy said as he took off a glove to really feel the material of the sweater.

"I'm lucky I don't have to worry about that sort of thing." Jiminy chirruped smugly.

"You're lucky yours is a sock stitched to be a tiny sweater." Donald shot back.

"Even luckier that's not a smelly sock." Sora added cheekily. Everyone else got a good chuckle at that, even Jiminy.

It was then that they had gotten a better look at their surroundings. It was a cute little room with two glowing mushrooms and an Old Tutu lying in the corner. Frisk went over and picked up the Old Tutu, finally a protective piece of armor. Then Frisk brought Jiminy down from atop their head and put him on one of the mushrooms, which squeaked and stopped glowing. While Frisk equipped the Old Tutu which gave them a good boost in defense. All that was left was to figure out what to do about the Manly Bandanna that once belonged to Ephemera. It didn't take Frisk long to figure out what to do with it, so they folded it respectfully, turned and handed it to Sora.

"What? You want me to have it? Why-?! Oh, you think Ephemera would want me as a fellow keyblade wielder to have it, don't you?" Sora reasoned. Frisk nodded with a serious expression on their face. Sora nodded to as he continued. "You're probably right, I'll wear it with honor."

Frisk smiled and touched the other mushroom which also squeaked and stopped glowing, and then signed to Jiminy to get a message across.

"Frisk says we oughta get some shut eye now. Undyne's gonna meet up with Papyrus in the next room and we're gonna hafta stay out of her sight while we're in there."

"How do we do that?" Sora asked curiously.

Jiminy waited on Frisk before translating the explanation. "There's some tall grass that we can hide in but Sora and Goofy are probably too tall to be able to hide when standing in it. You two will probably have to crouch down to not be noticed."

Goofy and Sora looked at each other and then shrugged and turned back to Jiminy and Frisk. "Why sure! Bein' sneaky can be fun!" Goofy said cheerfully.

"I've got no problem crawling if I have to." Sora added in the same optimistic tone.

"Alright, we get it! The fish lady is not one to be trifled with, now let's catch some Z's already…!" Donald announced already claiming a spot near a wall, then he hesitated upon realizing something personal. "Ohmigosh, I sound like my Uncle Ludwig."

The rest of the gang followed suit, eventually all of them curled around each other much like when they napped on the one bed back in Toriel's house in the Ruins. They all slept peacefully, except two. Naturally it would be the humans who had difficulty in their dreams.

* * *

_Sora opened his eyes to find himself somewhere that he shouldn't be yet…At least that's the feeling that he got from it. It was orange-gold everywhere he looked, goldenrod even, like the colors of a setting sun but it was so bright that it was nearly blinding. And it was a long hallway from what he could see._

" _Chara stop it!" Came the sound of a child's voice. Sora blinked, and suddenly there were three figures in the hallway, two that were Frisk sized closer to him and a very familiar skeletal shape a little farther down the hall. It didn't take long to adjust to the light enough to see that the closest Frisk sized kid really was Frisk, but the other…it looked a lot like Frisk but they kept blinking, for the lack of a better term, to look like another kid, one with lighter, reddish-brown hair and a green and yellow striped sweater._

" _Frisk? What's going on?" Sora called out in confusion. The closer child gasped and turned around so quickly that it was a wonder that they didn't lose balance. The other child hesitated in whatever it was they were doing, and slowly turned around in Sora's direction, wearing a really creepy smile._

" _Sora! You shouldn't be here!" Frisk replied worriedly pulling on their hair in a panic._

" _Y-you can talk?" Sora asked in shock._

" _Only here I can. Please Sora, you've gotta get out of here, it's not safe!" Frisk persisted, moving in front of the other child to block their path and their sight of the teenager who wasn't really there._

" _No way! I'm not leaving you here all by yourself! Especially not with that creepy kid behind you!" Sora argued back sounding quite heroic._

" _No! You don't understand! Chara's too dangerous! And so is Sans in this timeline!" Frisk insisted._

" _This timeline?" Sora mused outright in his silly boyish way even in dangerous situations, as he visually thought about it with a puzzled look on his face as he crossed his arms to think._

" _i dunno what the heck you're looking at kid, but then again you've proven to be nuttier than a jar of peanuts." Came Sans' voice from farther down the hall. Chara took immediate offence to that and left the new thing alone to go attack the skeleton down the hall. "welp. sorry old lady. this is why i don't make promises."_

" _Oh, no. He's starting again already!" Frisk panicked._

" _it's a beautiful day outside. birds are singing, flowers are blooming…on days like these, kids like you…" Sans monologued with his eyes closed until he opened them for his very last sentence, the lights in his eyes were gone for fearsome effect, which worked as it even sent a chill down Sora's spine_. " **Should be burning in hell**."

_All in quick motions, Chara used muscle memory to tuck into a roll and dodged a barrage of bones, then as the bones stopped, elongated skulls that greatly resembled the Heartless that Sora and the others fought earlier, complete with the laser beams coming out of their mouths fired at Chara. Chara managed to dodge that too of course, but just barely._

" _huh," Sans says with a cheeky shrug. "always wondered why people never use their strongest attack first."_

" _Frisk, was that…?" Sora started to ask but found that he couldn't really finish the sentence. He hardly could form any words after witnessing all of that. This was Sans' true potential? No wonder Frisk warned not to underestimate him right off the bat, but still…this was all so surprising._

" _Yes. From what you told me about Heartless, I wouldn't be surprised if the one you and the others fought when we went to go see Papyrus was his. Sans I mean, Papyrus can summon those things too but I've never seen him do it because that little dog always swipes it, and he was just as confused as we were about that Heartless showing up." Frisk replied._

" _And darkness didn't formulate around Papyrus either." Sora added because it was a slightly important minute detail concerning a person's darkness being strong enough to form a Heartless with its own red symbol._

" _Right." Frisk agreed. "It didn't surprise me to see it when we went to see Papyrus either. This timeline that we're looking in on is partly why."_

" _Whaddaya mean?" Sora asked curiously, just noticing that Chara had the intent to kill though each time they swiped at Sans, they missed because Sans was just too quick._

" _In this timeline…Everyone's dead except for a select few who were smart enough to go hide in either the city part of the Capital, or Alphys' lab…We'll meet Alphys soon enough, she's the one behind the cameras in Waterfall."_

" _Wha-?! E-everyone?! But wh-!" Before Sora could even finish his sentence nor comprehend what Frisk told him, behind Frisk, Chara lost the battle with Sans. Bones were sticking through them every which way, crimson was creeping across them, what shocked Sora the most about it was that it was affecting Frisk too. Acting entirely on instinct, Sora knelt down before the child and wrapped his arms around Frisk. "Frisk! C'mon! Stay with me! You're gonna be okay."_

" _Sora…" Frisk gurgled with a slight cough of blood. Sora flinched because he hadn't really seen blood this intense as he was more used to a few scratches and bruises and getting those healed to nothing within all forms of Cure spells._

" _Don't try to talk! Save your energy!" Sora told the child frantically. He actually tried to use Cura, but to no avail and he couldn't understand why, even his keyblade wouldn't materialize._

" _Sora, please, promise me…you'll understand…when I explain everything…later." Frisk continued weakly._

" _Alright, I promise! Just don't die! Please!" Sora pleaded. Frisk just smiled a little wider but still weakly, and then went limp in Sora's arms. "FRISK!" The teenager wailed, hugging the small limp body closer to him, numb to everything around him except the distinct maniacal laughter coming from the other small body in the room, the one that was still speared through with bones. Sora dared to slightly pull away from Frisk a little because the acoustics in that hallway confused and fooled him a little, but then he actually looked up to see Chara just barely alive, eyes surprisingly blood red but darkening to black and bleeding black tears._

 _Then Chara spoke a phrase that reminded Sora of Flowey, which would haunt him for the rest of the adventure in this world._ "It's me your best friend…Best friends forever, right?" _The crazed child continued laughing until they and Frisk coughed up blood one last time, Frisk's coughed up blood hit Sora in the face, which he actually felt and woke up from._

* * *

Startled, Sora sputtered as he sat up straight, freaking out from the vivid memory of the blood spewed onto his face, and wiped it as much as he could so he wouldn't feel the moisture anymore.

"Thank goodness that yer awake!" Came Goofy's voice to his left.

"That must've been some nightmare you had, we couldn't get much sleep because of you and Frisk fidgeting so much." Donald's voice added from somewhere just behind Goofy.

Sora finally blinked and pulled his hands away to find that they were simply damp, no red coloration to be seen on them. Next to him on his other side, he heard a small sputtering of the same caliber and looked to see Frisk was a-okay, not a spot of crimson to be seen on them.

"Frisk! You're okay!" Sora whooped in excitement and relieved happiness, as he reached for the child and hugged them tightly.

Despite initially being startled by the sudden warm embrace, Frisk welcomed it and hugged back with all their little might, wholly thankful that for once they weren't traveling this path alone and could actually get a hug whenever they needed it. They were so overwhelmed by the emotions of not being alone for this crazy adventure that they couldn't help but choke out a sob, and buried their face into Sora's chest.

"Shh, it's okay little buddy. You don't have to talk about it yet. So go ahead and just let it all out. Shh, it's okay. I won't ever let that happen to you, even if Sans goes up against us like that for real." Sora told the child soothingly, sitting cross-legged to support Frisk in his lap as he rocked back and forth.

"Sans? What in Sam Hill did you two dream about?" Donald asked worriedly, the two humans fidgeted so much in their sleep that everyone else had every right to worry.

"It's a long story, and even I'm not sure what all that even was." Sora answered simply, but continued to the best of his ability. "Frisk was able to talk in the dream, but there was another kid there that looked a lot like Frisk, but in so many ways just _**wasn't**_. Frisk said that it was another timeline we were seeing because Sans wasn't himself…or at least…he wasn't the Sans we know because of whatever happened in that other timeline…the rest… Well, I think it's better for Frisk to explain."

However, it took a longer while yet before Frisk was ready to explain anything. Eventually they did calm down, and pulled away from Sora and sat on their knees as they slowly signed to Jiminy. The cricket hesitated to translate again, shocked at what Frisk signed to him, and stunned stupid yet on how to explain to the others. Somehow he was able to, but he spoke slowly as he relayed the message.

"Frisk says that there's more to that other child than just slightly looking like them…Evidently their name is Chara and apparently they're some kind of monster of a child that has a fifty-fifty chance of possessing Frisk halfway through the Ruins, hence the different timeline. In that other timeline, in the instance that Chara does manage to possess Frisk…they… _ **destroy**_ everyone in their path….well everyone they can get their creepy little hands on, the only monsters who survive are the ones in the Capital's city itself and a scientist's secret lab in the next set of caverns called Hotland. Because they destroy everyone, even poor Papyrus, Sans steps up to be the last line of defense in that timeline and is extremly tough to defeat even for Chara, but it's still possible to defeat him, and if that happens, the world as we know it would end after defeating the king and Flowey without much effort. There just wouldn't be much left, and even those who went into hiding far from the reaches of Chara, they're under siege and would run out of resources eventually." Jiminy explained.

"And die of starvation…" Donald finished the unspoken thought solemnly. The thought of dying that slowly put a damper on all of them, but it was the lesser of two evils of dying at the hands of such an…entity of darkness that probably was heartless, figuratively speaking, though no one would be surprised otherwise from the sound of it. "You sure you're in total control now kid?" Donald couldn't help but stupidly ask, as he was the one to suggest going about looking for the keyhole without disturbing anything for once after all.

Frisk nodded with a look of determination on their face, then softened their expression as that was another thing to sign to Jiminy.

"Huh," Jiminy commented before translating. "Frisk says that they and Chara share the same trait of determination which is just coincidentally the only other thing they have in common." Jiminy then turned to just speak his own two bits of munny without confusion of whether or not he was translating. "Just goes to show that there really is two sides to every coin."

Frisk started to sign again and Jiminy's eyes widened in shock and horror. "Ap-apparently… Chara was buried in that flower bed, the one we landed on when we got here." Jiminy stuttered as he reluctantly translated.

"WHADDAYA MEAN THEY'RE BURIED IN THAT FLOWER BED?!" Donald shrilled getting ready to ram into Frisk, but even if it weren't for Sora scooping the child into his arms again, Goofy scooped up Donald from under the ducks arms from behind him, though struggled a little no thanks to Donald's wild thrashing. "Ya couldn'tve told us that sooner?!"

"Now, now, Donald!" Goofy had to raise his voice almost to a yell to be heard over Donald's furious quacks. "Frisk had their reasons! How long do ya think it would take _you_ if ya had a secret as serious as that, especially when ya've done the same thing's over and over that ya ferget 'til last minute about certain details that should be mentioned?"

At this, the duck calmed down faster than anyone's seen him do in a long time, it was like watching a firmly held balloon get pricked and quickly loose its air without popping outright. As soon as he stopped moving, Goofy let him back down.

"Sorry, I snapped at you kid. It's just…this world is so weird, and definitely the darkest…pardon the phrasing, world we've ever been to. It's a lot to take in…..waitaminute…." Donald apologized sincerely but as he continued to speak his heart and mind, he had an epiphany. "You mean to tell us that we got LUCKY that this is the good timeline?!"

Frisk nodded. Donald groaned and went over to bang his head against a wall.

"Sans could be the heart of this world for all we know!" Donald wailed after a few bangs of his head and a kick with his right foot, ignoring the pain in his webbed foot for once as he was just that frustrated.

"Not in this timeline I don't think so…" Sora quipped. Everyone looked at him, so he continued his thought process. "Frisk said it themselves and nothing was lost in Jiminy's translations. Sans was the absolute line of defense in that other timeline, but only because he needed to be because of the circumstances. Plus, my Keyblade didn't react to him at all whenever we met up with him, so, he's definitely not a factor of the keyhole we're looking for. It's gotta be somethin' else…and I hate to tell you Frisk, but I know what you were going for when we first told you what we were looking for, but I don't think it's gonna work." He then looked at the child sorrowfully, apologizing with his eyes. "You thought my Keyblade would open the barrier didn't you?" Frisk nodded sadly, also apologizing through eyes alone. "My Keyblade only opens any doors. I don't think barriers count 'cause their a little too magical, and a step above doors in a sense."

Donald groaned again, and everyone glanced his way as he spoke. "I had a sneaking suspicion that was what you were going for too, kid…Any other ideas as to what the keyhole might be?"

Frisk brought a hand to their chin in thought. It took a few minutes but they did come up with one other solution if they were going by the differences in timelines. So Frisk signed a possibility to Jiminy.

"There's probably something in Alphys' lab, her true lab but conditions have to be met to get into it and that requires getting to one room before the barrier and turning around to do a few more things." Jiminy translated.

"Who's Alphys?" Goofy asked curiously.

"Oh yeah, Frisk told me that Alphys was a scientist we'd meet later on, and she's the one behind the cameras." Sora answered for Goofy. When looked at in confusion as to how he could've possibly been told by Frisk this piece of information, he quipped, "In the dream that is."

Regardless, Donald interjected all of this by asking the important question here.

"WE HAVE TO BACK TRACK AFTER WE GET THERE?!"

"It's probably for the best, Donald." Goofy quipped.

"If conditions have to be met, then who are we to question them?" Sora reasoned. Donald just sighed in defeat, and muttered something about why things like this always happen to him.

"Welp, at least we have a better idea of what to look for, and I'm not tired anymore, anyone else?" Jiminy asked. Everyone actually had to think about it since this whole revelation of information had them all out of sorts. Finally, they all shook their heads, they weren't tired anymore. "Well let's go!"

So they all gathered themselves and headed out, wiping off what moisture they could from their sweaters after going through the little waterfall again, and finally heading into a slightly darker room where the lighting was weird, and a river was right next to them while ahead of them was some tall grass. At the corner of their eyes they caught sight of a figure across the way and was thankfully not looking in their direction. The foreign quartet already did the math and assumed the figure was Undyne, so they hunkered down into the grass as soon as they stepped into it.

Shortly after they settled themselves into the grass, with Donald protecting Goofy's nose for good measure, and not noticing that they weren't the only ones in that tall grass, Papyrus came into view and started to speak with the armor clad Undyne.

"H…HI, UNDYNE! I'M HERE WITH MY DAILY REPORT…" Papyrus started nervously. "UHHH…REGUARDING ABOUT THOSE HUMANS I CALLED YOU ABOUT EARLIER…" He paused as it appeared that Undyne asked him something but the armor was so thick and from this distance, no one could make it out. "…HUH? DID I FIGHT THEM?" Papyrus shivered visibly and shook his head. "UNFORTUNATELY NO, ONE OF THOSE BLACK FIENDS GOT IN THE WAY OF MY ATTEMPT TO FIGHT AND CAPTURE THEM, AND STRANGELY ENOUGH IT LOOKED LIKE ONE OF MINE AND SANS' SECRET WEAPONS BUT I KNOW IT WASN'T BECAUSE IT WAS BLACK AND HAD THOSE STRANGE RED SYMBOLS!" Papyrus explained. "THE OLDER HUMAN DEFEATED IT WITH HIS TWO MONSTER FRIENDS WHOM I DIDN'T RECOGNIZE, ONE IS A BIRD OF SOME SORT, AND THE OTHER IS A DOG…I THINK…HE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE ANY OF THE DOGS IN THE ROYAL GUARD ANYWAY SO IT'S KIND OF HARD TO TELL…" Papyrus shrugged before he continued. "AS FOR THE SMALLER HUMAN, I TRIED VERY HARD TO CAPTURE THEM, UNDYNE…BUT IN THE END…I FAILED." The tall skeleton then reacted to something Undyne said, but again our heroes couldn't make out exactly what, but Papyrus unknowingly filled them in anyway. "…W-WHAT? YOU'RE GOING TO TAKE ONE OF THE HUMANS' SOULS YOURSELF…BUT UNDYNE, YOU DON'T HAVE TO DESTROY THEM! YOU SEE…YOU SEE…" Papyrus pleaded and got a little closer, but quickly lost steam as he knew how Undyne was, and she further proved it by shouting an order back at him…probably…in any case, Papyrus stepped back his same steps to where he was to begin with. "…I UNDERSTAND. I'LL HELP YOU IN ANY WAY I CAN." He finally sighed in defeat, and with that he walked away.

The group felt their hearts dropped down to their stomachs, but they knew Papyrus had no choice, he gave them his phone number, whether or not he actually had theirs was debatable at the moment, but he was bound to find it eventually if he kept trying, just like they just knew he would. In any case, they waited for Undyne to leave, but she didn't move from her spot. Frisk, knowing that she wouldn't go away without a clue of some sort, kicked out and rustled a bit of the tall grass, quickly putting a finger to their lips knowing that the others would hiss their whispered complaints.

The rustle caught Undyne's attention and she walked all the way to the water's edge from her side of the river. She summoned an electric blue spear and looked this way and that. The group stayed absolutely still in fear of their lives. They noticed that only her right eye glowed out of her armor, and since she saw nothing but still had an air of suspicion about her, she backed up and disappeared into the darkness of that side of the cavern vanishing in a way that that same glowing eye was the last thing to vanish.

As soon as they were sure that she was gone, they sighed in relief and crawled out of the grass, with the little yellow lizard-like monster kid from earlier walking right out with them, doing a little happy dance of excitement.

"Yo…did you see the way she was staring at you guys…? That…was AWESOME! I'm SOOOO jealous! What'd you guys do to get her attention…? Ha ha. C'mon! Let's go watch her beat up some bad guys!" Without waiting for an answer of any sort he ran off a few steps, fell flat on his face but quickly got back up and kept on running.

"Isn't he not supposed ta be here or somethin'?" Goofy asked suspiciously as well as uneasily, having been a father himself after all.

"Yeah, he definitely told us not to tell his parents that he was here." Donald replied, equally suspicious. But the Monster Kid was long gone by now so there was nothing they could do about it.

There was a save point here so they saved.

 _ **The feeling of dread hangs over them, but they stayed determined**_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised Monster Kid cuteness, but that will be will be more towards the Umbrella part.


	8. Chases, Heartless, and Monster Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RUN FELLAS RUN!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Sorry about the delay my lovelies, but I tried to get this ready for Halloween and I didn't get the motivation for it until it was nearly too late, so by my Atlantic time I missed it...but I'm not sure it will read it since FF runs on Pacific time. We'll see. Just know that this is rightfully a Halloweenie chapter. Next chapter my little surprise that I mentioned ages ago will come into fruition! Enjoy!^.^

Despite their slight dread they continued on into the next room and found a sign that alluded to a puzzle, **When four Bridge Seeds align in the water, they will sprout** , as it said, but of course, it was easy to break the puzzle again as Sora once again picked up Frisk and he and the others merely waded through the water to get to the other side.

As soon as they entered the next room a monster named Aaron flexed in, and since he was so keen on body building and sweating up a storm, and winking after every sentence for some reason…. So, despite being ever so slightly creeped out by that, and the fact they had to avoid magic biceps and sweating bullets, Frisk and Sora had a flexing contest with him and he eventually flexed so hard he flexed himself out of the room. Frisk got hurt every now and then and had to eat one of their bicicles, which turned into a regular popsicle when singular, though they had to eat that second half too, to regain their health.

They didn't have much time to relax though as Heartless appeared. Some new Heartless appeared, such as a blue flower - Dire Plant like Heartless that was obviously trying to mimic Echo Flowers, but spit out Aero spells, thus it was dubbed the Aero Plant. There were also a few Bag O' Jewels that were probably there for the aesthetic of the minerals in the walls of these sets of caverns, not that our foreign quartet would know, they've never seen this particular kind of Heartless before even though these Heartless were originally in a world that's already been lost to darkness. And finally there were actually Heartless that were mimicking the nearby Bridge Seeds so they were dubbed Bridge Flowers, because they were little stubby things but the Bridge Seed looking flowers on their heads were in bloom, and Sora and the others found it was possible to bounce on them for extra height if need be for any combo attacks.

It didn't take too long to dispatch all the Heartless in the room, and once the room was cleared Frisk came out from hiding near where they entered and wandered over to the opposite end, looking around a cavern corner where most of the water in the room was.

"What's up Frisk?" Sora asked curiously. Frisk merely pointed in the direction they were looking in, and didn't give any other signs for Jiminy to translate.

"Looks like somethin's over there." Goofy announced. "I even see a little dock."

"Guess we might as well check it out." Donald sighed in resignation of how adventuring logic worked. Check every nook and cranny, one might never know what treasures one might find.

Goofy was the one to scoop up Frisk this time as they all broke the puzzle of the bridge seeds again and waded through the water over there. Over Goofy's shoulder, Frisk put a finger to their lips to signal to the others to keep quiet, and Donald guessed right away that an Echo Flower might be up ahead and whispered to Sora about his assumption. Sora nodded in agreement and waded faster to catch up to Goofy to let him know. Goofy got the message just as they reached the dock.

Here they found a bench next to an Echo Flower, they inspected the Echo Flower first before they checked the bench, but what the flower said didn't make any sense. "I just wasn't ready for the responsibility." It repeated to them. Looking back to the bench, they noticed something was under it, an Abandoned Quiche…

Sans could make quiche, and this quiche was a spinach quiche... or spinach egg pie as Papyrus would've called it, and it was somehow described as a psychologically damaged one at that….somehow…even the Echo Flower kind of sounded like him, but it was hard to say for certain... in any case there wasn't anything else noteworthy in this tiny corner of a cavern so they headed back, Frisk didn't look like they knew any more than they did about the quiche and what the Echo Flower said, so they didn't bother asking. Donald put Frisk on his shoulders for the short trek back as he was a bit envious of Goofy's attention to the kid so he took it upon himself for a small bit of bonding time.

"Alright, let's let Frisk do the puzzle this time, its bad enough we break it for them by picking them up and wading through the water ourselves, I actually wanna see those Bridge Seeds bloom." Donald announced to the others as he set Frisk down after they reached the Bridge Seed room.

"Sure!" the others agreed in unison, and then Sora noticed the lone sign in the middle of the water near where they originally came in from. "Hey, what's this sign say? 'Congratulations! You failed the puzzle.'" There was another exclamation point after the second sentence, but Sora was too disappointed at being duped to put enough cheer into it.

Donald started to bust a gut laughing at that. "Serves you right, Sora!"

Sora couldn't help but chuckle anyway, and at the sight of his tiny laughter the others also joined in for a chortle. "Yeah, I gotta admit, these things are pretty clever."

As soon as their laughter subsided, Frisk got to work on the puzzle, lining up the bridge seeds from the waterfall in the back to along a niche that jutted out from the opposite side of the tiny river. The trinity trio also noticed the sign about the Bell Blossom that could call the Bridge Seeds back if an error was made, but they knew Frisk knew what they were doing so they didn't worry about it. Especially since there were more glowing mushrooms that served no other purpose than to be mildly entertaining because they squeaked each time they were touched. Once all four Bridge Seeds were aligned they bloomed into pink flowers immediately, and they looked kind of like four leaf clovers only pink, but they did have green leaves in between their petals. Frisk crossed over on them easily, Donald did as well, but Sora and Goofy were a bit too heavy and the flowers they stepped on sunk a little under their weight. So they had to hop over, and then the cell phone rang.

"HELLO! THIS IS PAPYRUS!"

"How in Sam Hill did you get this number?!" Donald asked into the speaker.

"HOW DID I GET THIS NUMBER…? IT WAS EASY! I JUST DIALED EVERY NUMBER SEQUENTIALLY UNTIL I GOT YOURS! NYEH HEH HEH HEH! SO…WHAT ARE YOU WEARING…? I'M…ASKING FOR A FRIEND." Chills went up everyone's spine at that Undyne _**had**_ seen them but purposely chose not to act on it, probably because of Monster Kid but they couldn't say for sure. Regardless Papyrus continued. "SHE THOUGHT SHE SAW YOU HUMANS WEARING A DUSTY TUTU AND A BANDANNA. IS THAT TRUE? ARE YOU TWO HUMANS WEARING A DUSTY TUTU AND A BANDANNA?" He got a mixed reply of yes and no from various members of the group, though the yes outweighed the no, Papyrus couldn't quite make it out. "WELL WHICH IS IT? I CAN'T GO LYING TO UNDYNE OR I'LL NEVER MAKE IT INTO THE ROYAL GUARD!" The group all looked to Frisk, who mouthed out that there was no point in hiding. Deciding to trust Frisk on this they unanimously said yes. "SO YOU TWO ARE WEARING A DUSTY TUTU AND A BANDANNA…GOT IT! WINK WINK! HAVE A NICE DAY!" With that, Papyrus hung up.

Feeling the need to explain anyway Frisk started signing so Jiminy could translate.

"Frisk says it was for the best that we answered yes for Papyrus' sake, but even if we said no and changed into something else he still would have told her what we were wearing by completely assuming that we would never wear such a thing in the first place. Besides there's no point in hiding much, Undyne will fight us eventually but there's one more patch of grass we can hide in before we officially face her."

"Sounds fair enough to me." Sora quipped. "Don't worry Frisk, we'll protect you."

"I didn't wanna lie ta Papyrus anyway so that all works out fer me!" Goofy put in.

"Me neither!" Jiminy added.

"Lemme guess, despite how scary Undyne is right now she's actually a nice person once you get to know her?" Once again Donald was asking the important questions that bewildered the others for half a second, and naturally Frisk nodded. "Alright, we'll do it your way, kid. It's your world, and you're the one with a slight idea of where the Keyhole is."

Despite Donald's acceptance of how things were most likely and most definitely going to work, Frisk still felt the need to add, "We can't hurt her at all, we can defend against her attacks and when the opportunity arises we run as fast as we can." Jiminy translated.

"I think I get it, but that's not until we face her head on, right?" Sora asked. Frisk nodded again. "Got it! Don't worry Frisk, we'll go easy on her." Frisk smiled at that and continued leading the way.

In the next room the sign right across from them said this was the Wishing Room, and there were quite a few Echo Flowers in here, and when they looked up they understood why it was called the Wishing Room, especially after Frisk touched the first Echo Flower to their left. "A long time ago, monsters would whisper their wishes to the sky. If you hoped with all your heart, your wish would come true. Now, all we have are these sparkling stones in the ceiling…" Indeed, the sparkling stones in the ceiling of this cavern shone like stars. They even seemed to twinkle in the dimness of the cavern, and Jiminy's heart broke as the Echo Flowers progressed with each bit of a passing conversation.

"Thousands of people wishing together can't be wrong! The King will prove that." Uttered the second Echo flower to their right upon entering the room.

"C'mon Sis! Make a wish!" Gleefully came from the third Echo Flower, diagonally across the way from the second.

"I wish my sister and I will see the real stars someday…" Finished the fourth Echo Flower sitting right next to the third. Jiminy's determination to help the monsters of the underground grew tenfold, he would make sure they would be able to wish on the real stars or he was no Conscience worthy of the Big Blue Fairy.

Then they all ran into Woshua, a humble germaphobe who simply sought to cleanse the whole world, so they let Woshua clean them before sparing them.

The group then noticed a telescope next to the final Echo Flower in the room, they checked the Echo Flower first, and it was completely unrelated to the passing conversation of the other flowers, and also reminded them of something Sans said earlier about Papyrus not figuring out his own horoscope. "Ah… Seems my horoscope is the same as last week's…" Then they remembered that the Library ladies who actually wrote all the paper stuff were running out of ideas, so it actually all made sense.

Finally they checked the telescope and took turns looking through it, Sora and Donald didn't see anything but twinkling stones at first, but it was Goofy who moved it enough to find a big bright spot to see that there was writing on the lens and it said to 'Check Wall' with an arrow that pointed up. Goofy pulled away from the telescope and noticed there was a little hallway that reached a dead end across the way from the telescope, so maybe it meant to check that wall. With his deep thinking face on, Goofy walked all the way over and merely touched it, opening up a way through. He smiled widely to the others and they all gave two thumbs up for success, not wanting to utter a word since it seemed that it was disrespectful to rewrite over an Echo Flower.

In the next room they found themselves on a big dock, or board walk really, and there were tablets with writing on the opposite wall from them. There was water here but it was darker as there was no reflection to give any kind of shine to it, but they could make out the cattails that grew in the shallowest bits here and there. There weren't any Echo Flowers around in this room it seemed so they were finally free to talk, starting with Jiminy who definitely had something to say.

"That does it! I don't care when we find the Keyhole, we're staying until we help Frisk free everyone so they can go wish on the real stars!" The cricket huffed with determination.

"It's okay, Jiminy. That was the plan anyway." Sora told him soothingly, as he offered Jiminy his hand for the little fella to hop on from Frisk's shoulder. "Especially after that nightmare I shared with Frisk, there's no way that I'm letting them handle this adventure on their own, even if we do find the Keyhole sooner than expected." Frisk smiled gratefully at this.

"And especially after reading gloomy stuff like this!" Donald quacked from somewhere over near the tablets, evidently he read them all and honestly looked pretty dead inside because of it. His suspicions were coming true just as he thought but there had to be more than just what he read.

Cautiously, Sora and the others crept over to see what Donald was talking about and slowly read with horror at what he had meant.

Ancient writing covered the various tablets and they all could JUST make out the words. The first tablet was simply labeled 'The War of Humans and Monsters' while the others elaborated bit by bit.

"Why did the humans attack? Indeed, it seemed that they had nothing to fear. Humans are unbelievably strong. It would take the Soul of nearly every monster…just to equal the power of a single human Soul." The second tablet said, and things only looked grimmer as the third tablet continued.

"But humans have one weakness. Ironically it is the strength of their Soul. Its power allows it to persist outside the human body, even after death."

"If a monster defeats a human, they can take its Soul. A monster with a human Soul…A horrible beast with unfathomable power…" Foreboded the fourth tablet. The fifth and final tablet on this wall merely had an illustration of a strange creature…there was something very unsettling about the drawing, especially since the creature depicted was somewhat shaped like an upside down triangle…and that was just at a glance.

"There's more to it than just this isn't there Frisk?" Donald stated more than asked, but he still wanted to make sure. Frisk nodded solemnly. "And they don't get any brighter in news do they?" Frisk shook their head solemnly. "All the more reason to keep you and Sora safe." Donald finished in a quip. He knew now, how it was all done, the real question was how many came here before Frisk? The bunny shopkeeper back in Snowdin was too relieved to be comfortable about being extremely close to freedom, and if Donald was extremely right to think that human souls were the key to breaking the spell on the barrier placed by human hands with magic, then how many were needed? Again, he knew the answer would be given to them soon enough, he didn't even need to ask Frisk about it because he knew the kid would give him the same vague answer of it will come in time. Still it gave him every right to worry, but there wasn't any sense in worrying about it now.

There was a different colored platform at the end of the board walk that was just big enough for all of them to stand on, and it moved them across the way to another board walk. Then the lighting got even darker as they progressed.

Suddenly an electric blue spear stopped them in their tracks mere inches from their feet, it could've sliced Sora's nose off if he wasn't as careful. Then the armored figure of Undyne appeared from the shadows and summoned THREE spears to throw at them as the one that had stopped them before had faded.

"RUN!" Our heroes collectively shouted in unison just for the sake of if it wasn't already obvious. In all the scrambled commotion of _booking it_ , Goofy scooped up Frisk once again and summoned his biggest and most protective shield, the Akashic Record. As nice as the Save The King shield was from their last adventure it had too many openings in it, the first version was better suited for this sort of thing but he didn't have it on him. So the giant book shield would have to do, and it worked pretty well as it deflected some of Undyne's spears. Sora and Donald deflected any stray ones.

To make matters worse, their path began to zig zag.

"WHO ZIG ZAGS A BOARDWALK?!" Donald exclaimed angrily, flicking away what stray spears he could with his Premium Mushroom staff. Then he quacked in horror as black claws started to paw at their feet as they ran, like creatures from the black lagoon or something since the water was so dark. "What is this a horror movie? C'mon can't you stupid things ever give us a break?!" Donald stomped on the claws as he passed by out of spite if anything.

"Since when have we ever been that lucky Donald?!" Sora shouted as he deflected a few more spears.

Thankfully despite Undyne initially aiming for them, they apparently had a common enemy in the Heartless as she aimed for them too, the Heartless under the docks all seemed to be mere Shadows so they were dispatched very easily even under Undyne's spears.

Since her attention was partly diverted from them, Sora took it upon himself to use magic to get rid of any either side may have missed, didn't want them following after all. Especially since they were reaching a straightaway that led into more tall grass to hide in, and Undyne's pillars were coming to a halt so she was going to lose time in catching up to them.

Finally all the Heartless were dispatched and the pillars cut off Undyne from their straightaway into the tall grass, she still kept throwing her spears however, but kept missing due to the awkward angle an losing sight of them as they all had practically dived into the grass when they reached it but she didn't see because of the last pillar blocking her view, plus they were on the side of her bad eye so she lost them because of that too.

As they hid in the grass they desperately tried to catch their breath so they could slow it and silence it faster. Goofy stayed close to Frisk who in turn kept his nose in check from sneezing their position away, and Donald and Sora were farther apart amongst the grass to avoid detection.

Then they heard it, the metallic stomps of Undyne's armor making their way towards them, they stilled the breaths by trying to hold them, though their hearts pounded in their chests from running, fear, and anticipation. Her steps stopped, none of them were brave enough to even think of causing a distraction, they didn't know her power aside from summoning spears, and close range was not a good option at the moment. She seemed to have found her prey, she was closer to Goofy and Frisk…but she didn't seem to be looking at them…Then she lashed out and grabbed something…someone…it was Monster Kid! Realizing her mistake, Undyne gently put him back down, scanned the rest of the area with her good eye and walked back the way she came in the slight thought that she may have missed them jumping in the water.

Our heroes finally gulped in breaths of air as soon as they couldn't hear her metallic steps, and with the coast finally clear they all crawled out of the tall grass. As they stood up, Monster Kid popped out of the grass too, happy as a kid who just met their superhero.

"Yo…did you see that?! Undyne just…TOUCHED ME! I'm never washing my face again…! Man are you guys unlucky. If you were sitting just a LITTLE bit to the left…!" This last sentence he addressed to Frisk and Goofy, and mistook their exasperated expressions for disappointed ones as they continued. "Yo, don't worry! I'm sure we'll see her again!" With that he ran on ahead, tripping again but of course got himself back up and kept going.

"He nearly got hurt with the way she grabbed him an' he's still excited? Even my Maxie had his limits." Goofy quipped as he shook his head and clicked his tongue like a worried parent. Letting his shield fade as he put Frisk down at last.

"I completely agree." Jiminy added his two bits of munny.

"For all we know she probably pat his head after she put him back down since he wasn't her target." Donald told him in understanding. "If she continues to be that persistent he'll see for himself how uncool it really is that she's going after us since he's kinda our friend at this point."

"Still she's definitely not all that bad, she's definitely the kind to play fair, and she did help us with the Heartless back there." Sora spoke up. Frisk nodded in agreement.

"Maybe we're gonna hafta make friends with her, right Frisk?" Goofy suggested and turned to Frisk for confirmation. Frisk did indeed nod eagerly with a smile.

"I figured as much, but this won't be as easy as it was befriending Papyrus, so we have to stay on our toes." Donald replied expectantly. Everyone nodded.

With everyone in agreement they continued on and found themselves in a small room with a set of save points, an Echo Flower, another mouse hole and a table that had some cheese that had been there so long that a magic crystal had grown around it, making it extremely stuck to the table. The Echo Flower only said 'squeak' as it repeated what the mouse in the hole said.

So they saved. _**Knowing one day the mouse might extract the cheese from the mystical crystal…it filled them all with determination**_.

They went on into the next area and found neon blue and possibly glowing water nearly everywhere, Sans next to a telescope and just beyond him was a box, and next to the box was doorway of sorts and standing outside of it a little further down was a strange grey, tear drop shaped monster with legs. They decided to talk to Sans first since he was the closest.

"Hey, Sans. What's up?" Sora greeted, having completely forgotten about his shared nightmare with Frisk for the moment.

"i'm thinking about getting into the telescope business. it's usually 50000 G to use this premium telescope…but…since i know you guys, you can use it for free. howzabout it?" He winked, hoping they'd take the bait for this classic. Which of course they did.

"Sure! You go first Goofy." Sora offered.

"Why thank you kind sir!" Goofy bowed gratefully, and then took a look see in the telescope. "Hmm…not much ta see here."

"Wha? Well, let me try." Sora suggested. Goofy let him have a go at it and got similar results, and getting the joke wanted to see if he could convince Donald to go for it. "Hey, you're right. Not much at all, it's so blurry."

"Alright move over, Sora. You two probably aren't even using it right!" Donald butted in nudging Sora out of the way, and once he looked in, immediately got offended as he quickly looked around in the telescope. There was nothing but red. "Hey! What's the big idea?!" This he directed at Sans.

"what? you aren't satisfied? don't worry. i'll give you a full refund." Sans winked again since they didn't pay in the first place. He was satisfied though, he could hardly believe all three of them fell for it, and wasn't too surprised the kid wasn't fooled, nor the cricket...He figured the cricket just plain didn't trust him, couldn't blame him if he's that much of a stickler for safety.

Donald groaned and put a hand to his face in exasperation, he should've seen this one coming from the comedic skeleton. Then he noticed that he felt something wet on his hand, and slowly pulled it away from his face to find some kind of dark gunk. He quacked in exclamation, and it brought on the attention of the others. Donald in turn looked up at them and realized the full extent of Sans' ruse as he pointed to both Sora's and Goofy's faces. They both had gunk on their eyes that they looked through the telescope with too.

The ol' black eye trick, how very clever of Sans. It didn't take long for Sora and Goofy to realize the same thing as Donald as they wondered what the dark smear on his eye was and looked to each other and noticed similar dark smudges, (though it was more noticeable on Goofy's eyelid than anything) and frantically started looking back and forth between each other and Donald until the lightbulbs finally went on and their gaze settled on Sans. The skeleton was simply smiling as always, though he winked upon noticing that they realized what he did to them.

Frisk started the giggle fest as they couldn't hold in their laughter anymore and the others followed suit regardless of being the ones the joke was done on.

"Good use of a classic, Sans!" Goofy complimented, as he and the rest of the group waved their goodbyes and walked over to the water's edge to wash the gunk off.

Once they were all washed up…ignore the potential pun on that one…They went over to the off white tear drop shaped monster to see what it had to say, while Frisk went over to the box to sort out their inventory.

"What's a star? Can you touch it? Can you eat it? Can you kill it? ... Are you a star?" The monster asked curiously. Because the second to last question was the creepiest, so against Jiminy's better judgement of answering the monster, they instead walked away slowly and into the doorway that was right there.

They were pleasantly surprised to find the Nice Cream guy here, completely relocated to the extent that the ancient glyphs on the back wall have been painted over with a list of 21 flavors of ice cream, there was also another box in here as well as another glowing mushroom. Since Frisk had eaten a whole bicicle and cleared up their inventory a little, they were fully prepare to buy themselves and everyone else some more Nice Cream, they needed it after that run in with Undyne. But of course the Nice Cream guy was blue figuratively again since he hadn't fully taken notice of them yet.

"I relocated my store, but there are still no customers…" He said somberly, then winked one eye open, noticed them and cheerfully decided to reveal his new marketing campaign. "Fortunately, I've thought of a solution! Punch cards! Every time you buy a Nice Cream, you can take a punch card from the box. If you have three cards, you can trade them for a free Nice Cream! They're sure to get the customers to come back!"

Well that worked out perfectly in their favor! Jiminy denied wanting a Nice Cream again so Frisk paid for Sora, Donald, and Goofy's Nice Cream, while Frisk got the free one. Albiet, they had to disrupt a couple of spiders that were in the box playing a card game with only those three cards, some games just have to end for the greater good. Satisfied with their Nice Creams, and Frisk sharing a tiny smidge with Jiminy anyway, they left, heading downwards and coming across Echo Flowers as they went, seemingly a passing conversation that was a continuation of the Wishing Room Echo Flowers.

"So? Don't you have a wish to make?" Said the first one they came across.

"…Hmmm, just one but… It's kind of stupid." Said the one next to it.

The path split up around here and for now Frisk led them to the left, only to find an area that was a dead end though had more glowing mushrooms and one lone tall patch of grass. Frisk went into it and came out with pair of Ballet Shoes and equipped them, feeling more dangerous with them on…but with hope they would be somewhat useful against the Heartless the next time they appeared. However Frisk was a bit at a loss as knowing what to do about the Tough Glove, what with not wanting to bring up Skuld's name for the sake of maybe Skuld was another Keyblade Wielder, or better yet both the Bandanna and the Tough Glove belonged to someone else entirely and they got them as gifts from both of the owners of the names. But still…not wanting to bring up the issue in case it was all just a mere coincidence, Frisk kept the Tough Glove in their inventory for now until they got to another box.

Suddenly just as Frisk was about to try to pirouette, mushroom Heartless appeared, and they looked exactly like the glowing mushrooms all around Waterfall, so Jiminy wrote them in as Glowing Fungi for their new names. Luckily these Heartless were easy enough to dispatch of no matter which variation of the shrooms they were (with the sole exception of the Gold Tricholoma but that one was more difficult to keep in place than to dispatch it), so when Frisk round house kicked one to the face, no one had any qualms of Frisk joining in on this particular fight. Even luckier, there were only four of them, same number as the actual glowing mushrooms that were already there, so there was one Glowing Fungi for each of them.

Naturally that scuffle didn't take long so they headed back and went the way they were supposed to go to move on. Then Papyrus called again.

"HELLO! THIS IS PAPYRUS! REMEMBER WHEN I ASKED YOU TWO HUMANS ABOUT CLOTHES? WELL THE FRIEND WHO WANTED TO KNOW…HER OPINION OF YOU BOTH IS VERY… _MURDERY_. BUT I BET YOU KNEW THAT ALREADY! AND BECAUSE YOU KNEW THAT…I TOLD HER WHAT YOU TOLD ME YOU TWO HUMANS WERE WEARING! A DUSTY TUTU AND A BANDANNA! BECAUSE I KNEW, OF COURSE…AFTER SUCH A SUSPICIOUS QUESTION…YOU TWO WOULD OBVIOUSLY CHANGE YOUR CLOTHES! YOU'RE SUCH SMART COOKIES! THIS WAY YOU'RE SAFE AND I DIDN'T LIE! NO BETRAYAL ANYWHERE! BEING FRIENDS WITH EVERYONE IS EASY!" With that he hung up completely satisfied. Again, Frisk signed and Jiminy translated that not changing clothes was for the best.

Regardless of how uneasy this whole situation was making everyone, they continued on with determination that things were going to turn out all right. They even ran into yet another Echo Flower, still continuing the conversation from before.

"Don't say that! C'mon, I promise I won't laugh!" It repeated. There weren't any more Echo Flowers nearby, but there was a tablet on a kitty corner wall just before the next room.

"The power to take souls. This is the power that humans feared." Surprisingly these sets of words were emphasized by the quotation marks, much like the very first tablet that simply said "The War of Humans and Monsters." And the words themselves made sense, as logically anyone would be afraid of such a power to take a soul, especially since the process to obtain one is…what it is…death in and of itself.

However there was nothing that any of them could do or say about the uneasiness they all felt at this particular tablet's words, plus there had to be more to it since it stopped or paused for now. So they continued on into the next room.

This room was huge and they all got an eerie feeling right off the bat, and it didn't help that it was a long hallway with water on either side.

"So help me if this is just like running from that close call with Undyne…" Donald grumbled in disdain, not even in the mood to finish his sentence. The others silently agreed. Frisk was the only one who even knew what was usually in this room…but it felt different somehow.

The group walked cautiously along, Frisk expecting to see yellow tentacles at any second now, but getting worried each second that passed when nothing of the sort came along. Suddenly they heard a splash from somewhere behind them, slowly their heads turned to look for the source and found a long black tentacle wiggling and blocking the possibility of the way back.

"That better not be Ursula again…" Sora groaned. "It was bad enough when she caused me and Riku to get separated during our Mark of Mastery exam."

"She made it ta yer islands?" Goofy asked curiously.

"Yep, caused a whirlpool and everything." Sora replied.

"I'm pretty sure that's not Ursula." Donald said for the sake of it. "I don't see purple suction cups on that thing."

To make matters worse the tentacle had friends, and not just the other tentacles in likeness, of all things Screwdivers and Missile Divers were actually crawling out of the water much like the regular Shadows from before. Then, slowly, a dark bulbous head with big eyes rose from the far side of the water, quite possibly belonging to the tentacles. Frisk knew it was Onionsan, but they couldn't tell if he turned into a Heartless or not as it was too dark to see.

However, the tentacle and its brothers started whacking at the Screwdivers and Missile Divers, even throwing some of them against the walls. Completely leaving our heroes alone. When the Heartless were all completely taken care of, even the ones that were a little further up ahead, and ones that hadn't even climbed out of the water yet, the bulbous head turned to our heroes and leaned in closer to them. The very tip top of its head was pale yellow.

"Hey there…Noticed you were here and totally not one of them… They're not very nice, they made me ink…" He greeted awkwardly and explained as he wiped his face off and revealed his true coloration as that pale yellow, and he retracted his tentacles and followed our heroes along the water as he talked. "I'm Onionsan! Onionsan, y'hear! Aside from those creepy things, Waterfall is still pretty great! It's my Big Favorite!" His eyes got bigger and cuter as he said Waterfall was his favorite. Then his head sunk a smidge for his next sentence. "Even though the water's getting so shallow here… I, have to sit down all the time but…" He popped his head back out with something akin to determination in his eyes. "He-hey! That's OK! It beats moving to the city! And living in a crowded aquarium!" He looked meekly to the side. "Like all my friends did!" He sunk his head in the water again as he got a little depressed again. "And the aquarium's full, a-anyway, so, even if I wanted to I…" His head popped back up in a burst of hope. "That's okay though, y'hear! Undyne's gonna fix everything, y'hear! I'm gonna get out of here and live in the ocean! Y'hear!" Then our little group finally made it near the exit of this long hallway cavern, and Onionsan couldn't help but point it out, with literally a tentacle. "Hey…there…That's the end of this room. I'll see you guys around! Have a good time! In Waterfallllllllllllllllllllllllllllll" He kept extending the L as he sunk all the way down into the water. And so our group carried on into the next room.

Just a few steps in and the white walled thing happened again, and it was weird this time because Shyren was hiding in a corner but somehow they encountered her anyway. She's tone deaf and is too ashamed to sing her deadly song, though she likes pretending to be a pop idol anyway. Frisk whistled a jazz ballad, Sora hummed along, and Shyren followed their melody as she steadily became much more comfortable singing along. Frisk whistled and Sora hummed some more – monsters were drawn to the music. Suddenly it's a concert…Sans is selling tickets made of toilet paper. The humans whistle and hum some more. The seats are sold out. They felt like rock stars. The crowd tosses clothing – it's a storm of socks…but the constant attention…the tours…the groupies…It's all….Shyren toots aggressively and thinks about her future. Frisk, Sora, and Shyren have come so far, but it's time. They all have their own journeys to embark on. Frisk and Sora whistle and hum a farewell song, and Shyren gives one final toot.

"Of course Sans would show up in the middle of all of that." Donald quipped exasperatedly as they all came out of that weird white box set up again.

"Would ya expect anythin' else? Just be glad those weren't his smelly socks, ahyuck!" Goofy chuckled.

"I'm just glad we could give Shyren a little more self-confidence, right Frisk?" Sora said, looking to Frisk for a small bit of confirmation. Frisk nodded eagerly.

"Oh look! More tablets!" Jiminy pointed out. There was one near an opening to another room, but there were two more along the hallway that seemed to continue on.

The closer one by the seemingly singular room mentioned a great treasure, and naturally Donald went right inside. Only to be halted by the puzzle that pretty much said to keep going down the corridor to listen to a song so one could play it on the lone piano in the room. So Donald was in the lead in heading back out and down the corridor but not before reading the more important tablets along the wall as they passed by.

"This power has no counter. Indeed, a human cannot take a monster's Soul. When a monster dies, its Soul disappears. And an incredible power would be needed to take the Soul of a living monster." Said the one tablet.

"There is only one exception. The Soul of a special species of monster called a 'Boss Monster.' A Boss Monster's Soul is strong enough to persist after death…If only for a few moments. A human could absorb this Soul. But this has never happened. And now it never will." Said the other.

Continuing past the tablets they came across a lone statue of a monster with horns leaning against the wall. There was a spotlight of sorts above it and it was raining solely on the statue, but the structure at its feet seemed dry. Still the group felt bad that the rest of it was getting rained on, luckily just up ahead there was a bunch of umbrellas free for use. Goofy took one and placed it atop the statue. Inside the statue, a music box began to play a sad sounding melody.

It didn't take long for them to figure out this was the melody needed to solve the piano puzzle, especially since they began to see the mist trail of the notes that needed to be played above the statue. So they headed back, and Frisk played the notes, having known them so well. Circle, up, right, circle, down, down, right. The wall in the back of the room opened much like the one in the Wishing Room.

Inside this next room was a round red sphere that Donald was immensely disappointed at, what with having been on just as many adventures with his Uncle Scrooge and nephews for grander treasures untold than this. Even Ariel's thingamabobs were worth more in his honest opinion.

However, despite Donald's displeasure at the sight of it, it was indeed a legendary artifact. But before doing anything, Frisk dialed Toriel's number, and the receiving ringing came from Frisk's inventory. Everyone looked at Frisk in bewilderment, Donald on the other hand looked at them in horror since he was the one who made the extra calls to Toriel to know about the dog swiping her phone in the first place. Frisk could not pick up the artifact…because they were carrying too many dogs. Still, the others continued giving Frisk looks of confusion and horror. Now, Frisk went into their inventory and deployed the Annoying Dog. The same one that did its own stunts in Snowdin, the same one that always steals Papyrus' secret weapon, and the very same one that naps in that secret room in the forest before reaching Snowdin.

The dog absorbed the artifact and ran straight through the wall. Donald actually tried to catch it but he hit the wall, unable to follow. The artifact was gone, and all Frisk had left was dog residue, a weird crystallization of white fluff that multiplied and occasionally turned into Dog Salad when used.

Bewildered by all that they just witnessed they got the heck out of there and continued down the hall passed the statue and the two humans got themselves an umbrella. Donald and Goofy didn't really need it. Donald was a water fowl of course and naturally liked the rain, and Goofy shared with Sora, and of course Jiminy had his own umbrella but was still on Frisk's shoulder so he didn't need to use it.

Unsurprisingly there was a reason the umbrellas were there, as the next hallway of caverns were dripping with water, and there were puddles everywhere. As they walked, they ran into Monster Kid again, who was standing in an alcove where it wasn't raining, but was super happy to see them.

"Yo! You guys got umbrellas? Awesome!" Monster Kid said excitedly, moseying up to Frisk since they were more his height. "Let's go!"

So off they went, happy to have the pleasant company of each other. Just as they reached the corner to another raining hallway, Monster Kid spoke up again.

"Man, Undyne is sooooooo cool. She beats up bad guys and NEVER loses. If I was a human, I would wet the bed every night…knowing she was gonna beat me up! Ha ha."

No one dared to say a word or tell him the truth that he was in the presence of two actual humans who were already intimidated, not scared mind you-intimidated by Undyne. So they kept walking in peaceful silence, up until they passed by an Echo Flower they couldn't reach, but was indeed noticed by Monster Kid.

"So, one time. We had a school project where we had to take care of a flower. The king - we had to call him 'Mr. Dreemurr' – volunteered to donate his own flowers. He ended up coming to school and teaching the class about responsibility and stuff. That got me thinking…YO! How COOL would it be if UNDYNE came to school?! She could beat up ALL the teachers!"

Everyone _**froze**_ and dared to glance at Jiminy, who was already being held back by Frisk with a single hand around the cricket in all the right places to keep him from going anywhere and to be quiet. But it didn't go unnoticed by Monster Kid.

"Hey what's that little dude's problem?"

"Oh, he's just a stickler for rules and such…and REALLY didn't appreciate that comment about Undyne beating up all the teachers…"Sora admitted, hoping Monster Kid would get the hint and apologize or at the very least change his thought process. Luckily Monster Kid chose the latter and it was somewhat helpful to them in the end.

"Umm, maybe she wouldn't beat up the teachers…She's too cool to ever hurt an innocent person!" Monster Kid backtracked on his words a bit and everyone sighed in relief. Even Jiminy calmed down, and simply nodded to show he was satisfied…but the second Frisk released him…he chewed out Monster Kid anyway…albeit surprisingly, _**gently**_. Monster Kid, apologized for offending the cricket in any way and promised to be good about their schooling.

The rain then stopped as they came into a HUGE cavern with a narrow path, it was huge only because it got a good look at the castle from here, and with all the twinkling minerals in the ceiling…the sight was _gorgeous_. They all felt the need to look at it as Monster Kid went ahead a little to get the best spot to see it in the middle of this cavern to look directly at the castle. The others went and joined him, Sora sat down and Jiminy hopped off Frisk's shoulder for a moment to enjoy the view properly. Frisk stood next to Monster Kid, and together they all enjoyed this amazing view of the castle, completely forgetting about the worries that should have come with it.

Donald and Goofy couldn't help but mentally chuckle, as from this distance the castle looked kind of like Disney Castle, but the gorgeous view wasn't quite enough to make them homesick as they had been home for quite a while there before setting out on this new adventure with Sora, even with all the crazy stuff that happened in between such as dealing with the Data Worlds inside Jiminy's journal, and being there for support for Sora and Riku's Mark of Mastery exam.

Eventually they managed to tear themselves away from the picturesque view that they successfully seared into their brains, and continued on, running into what seemed to be a dead end for one of them, as Monster Kid looked at the ledge that appeared to be the way forward almost pitifully. Almost, because he brightened at a realization, as Frisk and Sora dropped off their umbrellas in the corresponding umbrella holder.

"Yo, this ledge is way too steep…But it looks like you guys could climb it just fine!" Monster Kid said with cheeriness.

"Don't you want to come with us? We're more than strong enough to pull you up too." Sora tried to reason, but Monster Kid was determined to find his own way.

"Don't worry about me. I always find a way through! You guys go on ahead and go see Undyne!" With that, he went back the way they came before they could try to reason with him further.

"Gwarsh! What d'ya suppose that was all about?" Goofy asked completely confused, knowing just as well as everybody else that they could've all gone on together.

As usual Frisk was the only one who knew better as they got Jiminy's attention and started signing to him.

"Frisk says it's for the best, since we're gonna have another run in with Undyne up ahead." Jiminy announced.

"Oh great, it better not be another zig zagging board walk." Donald groaned.

"Actually its much worse," Jiminy translated. "Undyne will be trying to get us from below us, and the boardwalks go every which way and there are holes everywhere."

"Just our luck then." Donald grumbled further.

"Just as long as we don't run into anymore Heartless I'm sure we'll be fine." Sora said optimistically as they helped each other up the ledge and continued on.

They found two tablets along the wall and a set of save points. The tablets didn't lighten their mood any.

"The humans, afraid of our power, declared war on us. They attacked suddenly, and without mercy." Said the first one closest to them.

"In the end it could be hardly be called a war. United, the humans were too powerful, and us monsters, too weak. Not a single Soul was taken, and countless monsters were turned to dust…" Said the other just past the save points.

Speaking of which they saved as the boardwalks were right there, and they weren't taking any chances when it came to Undyne. **_The serene sound of a distant music box…filled them all with determination_**.

Cautiously they continued one the boardwalk, knowing what would generally happen thanks to Frisk, but still dreading it nonetheless.

It took 16 steps out on the boardwalks before they were stopped dead in their tracks by the sound of something not theirs being summoned, then suddenly out of the ground came out the electric blue of Undyne's spears. She was playing fair by making them form a pattern around them where they could dodge them, and then they heard her armor clanking from below and finally saw her figure following their movements. As soon as this first batch of spears disappeared they made a break for it.

Donald scooped up Frisk this time because he was the closest to the kid and Goofy's shield was not going to help here, and not to mention when he was extremely panicky he was the fastest even with the extra weight of carrying a kid that was Frisk sized.

And of course more Heartless showed up just as Donald complained about the first Zig zag they come across which just happens to be the first obstacle of the whole boardwalk. Silver Rock Heartless were everywhere and messing them up by firing light attacks at them….but again, Undyne proved to be a fair antagonist in this situation as she carefully placed several of her spears underneath the Silver Rocks as well even when they teleported. Sora helped too of course with some well-aimed Firagas, but still, it was amazing to see how far Undyne was willing to go to play fair.

The longer they took, the faster Undyne's spears got, so being puzzle breakers as they were, they hop, skipped, and jumped some boardwalks as the holes got numerous and more maze like. They followed Frisk's pointing finger to head for the big square area to continue on.

In this next area, the speed of Undyne's spears reset to the first slow space and kept persisting until they hit the dead end, and the spears stopped.

They waited patiently for a few minutes, hoping with all their might that they lost her. Donald felt safe enough to put Frisk down, and so they walked back but stopped dead in their tracks as they heard before they saw Undyne slowly walk toward them…She freaking JUMPED all the way up here…in ARMOR. She was more powerful than any of them imagined…Donald wondered if she could beat Hercules in an arm wrestling match, if she could he would bet a lot of munny and win on it… but those thoughts were not important right now.

As she blindsided all of them by summoning three spears from above and sent them crashing down to a spot between them and her, slicing the board walk in half. She was on the supported half so she did not fall like they did. They all blacked out on the way down, faintly hearing the splash of their half of the board that they were standing on.


	9. Mad Dummy,Napstablook and Undy

" _ **It sounds like it came from over here…Oh! You've fallen down, haven't you…Are you okay? Here, get up…Chara, huh? That's a nice name.**_

_**M Y N A M E I S…** _ _"_

Sora and the others woke with a start, and found themselves either on a bed of golden flowers once again or the debris of the plank they were just standing on, the main difference being that there was a bit of water on the edges instead of more ground, their various limbs were getting soaked. Donald had the worst luck of it, having gotten a ton of water in his mouth, enough that one could swear that he also spat out Jiminy…scratch that,  _he did_. However, that wasn't important at the moment.

"Did anyone else just hear a voice refer to Chara by name?" Donald asked in a low and calculated tone.

"Gwarsh, you too? I thought it was just me so I didn't wanna say anything!" Goofy quipped.

"Yeah, I heard it. How 'bout you Frisk?" Sora asked as Frisk sat up.

Frisk nodded and wanted to add on, but noticed Jiminy wasn't in immediate line of sight and looked around frantically for him, just managing to spot him floating away on a loose flower. With a silent gasp of panic, Frisk quickly got up and leaped for him, since there was a waterfall along the wall and another one on this level further up ahead to worry about.

"Thanks, Frisk, that sure was some current." Jiminy thanked, brushing off gobs of water droplets from his top hat. "I heard the voice too for the record!" He announced so that the others would hear.

"So, what was that Frisk?" Sora waded over and asked, the water was ankle deep for all of them and somehow he managed to ignore Donald quacking furiously in the background at something in favor of an answer for the curious situation.

Frisk gave a look that wondered how to go about it, or not at all given the circumstances of the truth in the long run. Then they thought of the best answer to give the others as well as why it was so strange for  _ **all**_  of them to have heard it.

"Huh, Frisk says that it's extremely strange that all of us heard it since it's a piece of Chara's memories." Jiminy translated, then he got distracted by Donald's incessant quacking and decided to loudly ask the water fowl what was up. "Alright Donald, what's got you so riled up now?"

"GARBAGE! GARBAGE IN THE WATER EVERYWHERE! I SPAT YOU AND THAT SAME WATER OUT! EEWWWW!" Donald shrilled. Everyone else finally took in their surroundings and noticed the piles of garbage, they instantly felt bad for the duck, and gave their own sounds of disgust…

Except Goofy, he was more fascinated by what he could find in the garbage piles, and boy did he find a lot.

"Hey! There's a bunch of neato stuff in here that's pretty useful!" He called over his shoulder to the others. As they came up behind him, Sora gasped in pleased surprise and joined him in digging. There was an Aero spell and an Aeroa as well as a ton of Potions, Hi Potions and at least one Mega Potion. All of which Sora happily pointed out to Frisk since they seemed very interested in how pretty the various potions looked in comparison to each other, as they looked like bottled jelly cosmos of various sizes even though they were drinkable.

Other than the foragables, there were only a few brand names on random junk that Frisk recognized, and a few that neither Frisk nor the others recognized, something about Chocobos…whatever those were, but judging by the faded out picture and text of whatever promotional thing it was supposed to be, it was a yellow bird that was chubby in its infancy and ridable in its adulthood. Everything else in the trash heaps that were scattered further into the next room were simply garbage.

There was also a save point on a plank of its own, hard to say if it was part of the plank they fell from or not, but it was wedged between the waterfall on the wall beside them and the waterfall that was the source of the current that threatened to flush Jiminy away. Just to be safe, they saved.  _ **The waterfall here seems to flow from the ceiling of the cavern…Occasionally, a piece of trash will flow through…and fall into the bottomless abyss below. Viewing this endless cycle of worthless garbage…It filled them all with determination.**_

They continued on into the next room finding more garbage piles, a rusted bicycle with a horn that wheezes in despair, a beat-up desktop computer that was empty, a cooler with two freeze-dried space bars of astronaut food that they took for safe keeping, a desperately scratched up DVD case of an anime, and finally a training dummy that was fairly identical to the one Toriel made them practice on. The group stared into its eyes for a moment and then continued moving on, unknowingly incurring the wrath of something that was watching them back.

No sooner than they were mere steps away from the bar of land that would get them out of the ankle deep water, did they all feel the presence of something and it was behind them. Slowly they all turned their heads just in time to see the training dummy they just passed by gain angry eyes of absolute fury. It was so mad that it jumped and floated before them, blocking their way forward.

"Hahaha…Too intimidated to fight me, huh!? I am a ghost that lives inside a DUMMY. My cousin used to live inside a DUMMY too. Until…YOU LOT CAME ALONG!" It bellowed angrily. "When you talked to them, they thought they were in for a nice chat…But the things you SAID…! Horrible. Shocking! UNBELIEVABLE! It spooked them right out of their dummy! HUMANS! I'll scare your Souls right out of your bodies!" And thus started the 'Fight' with the Mad Dummy blocking the way, as the white walled interface surrounded our heroes.

The Mad Dummy had an attack power of 7, and a - 40 defense, because they're a ghost, physical attacks will fail if attempted.

"Futile! Futile! FUTILE!" the Mad Dummy screeched as it sent little lesser dummies to shoot scribbles at Frisk and Sora's Souls. It wasn't until the shots came from the back most walls that they noticed the Mad Dummy could get hit with them, and since physically attacking wasn't going to work it apparently counted if it was a magical one and a taste of its own medicine. As evidenced by the very helpful slip of the tongue the Mad Dummy made in frustration.

"OWWWW, you DUMMIES! Watch where you're aiming your  **MAGIC**  attacks!" Then the Mad Dummy realized what it just said and tried to cover it up but did so poorly. "…Hey! You two! Forget I said anything about  **MAGIC**! ! !" The Mad Dummy started to look nervous. Frisk and Sora tried talking to the Dummy…It, like it's cousin, didn't seem much for conversation. No one is happy with this.

"I'll defeat you both and take your Souls!" Mad Dummy snarled, and started bossing around its bullets. "I'll use either one of your Souls to cross the barrier!" Then the next hit of scribbles made Mad Dummy change tactics a little and start floating back and forth to make it harder to hit with perfectly dodged scribbles. "I'll stand in the window of a fancy store!" It bellowed its dream, and became hopping mad with each hit of a scribble that came in waves. "THEN EVERYTHING I WANT WILL BE MINE!"

Mad Dummy kept getting sneakier as it stayed in a corner to make it even more difficult for the dodged scribbles, but Frisk and Sora were able to manage it anyway. Mad Dummy then started to get cotton all over the dialogue box. In terms of turns, the humans had no other option but to spam the spare button each time it was their turn.

"Huh? Yeah, I guess that'll avenge my cousin." The Mad Dummy said in a white lie, as their eyes looked off to the side nervously. The little dummies added a tactic, they turned red and dropped from the ceiling of the white walls. "What was their name again…?" Gravity went whichever which way for the little dummies when they turned red, as their aim was for the opposing wall though they left a space for the Souls to pass through unharmed. More scribbles were dodged and hit the Mad Dummy. "Whatever. Whatever! WHATEVER! Foolish. Foolish! FOOLISH! Futile. Futile! FUTILE!" Another wave of scribbles and Mad Dummy decided to up things a little.

"Hey guys!" Out popped all the little dummies on all four walls. "Dummies. Dummies! DUMMIES! Remember how I said NOT to shoot at me? Well…FAILURES! YOU'RE FIRED! YOU'RE ALL BEING REPLACED! ! !" The little dummies sadly went away. "Hahaha. Hahaha! HAHAHA! Now you'll see my true power: Relying on people that aren't garbage!" Mad Dummy bellowed maniacally. Mechanical whirrs filled the room.

"DUMMY BOTS! MAGIC MISSILE!" Mad Dummy ordered, and out came little dummy robots that fired missiles that looked like little rockets. They were Soul seeking missiles as they followed Frisk and Sora around with ease, but were easily shaken off with one little circle so the missiles could loop and careen right into a direction that they had to somehow calculate, for the moment they missed Mad Dummy of course and the Mad Dummy responded in kind.

"DUMMY BOTS! TRY AGAIN!" So they did, and Frisk and Sora missed Mad Dummy again. "DUMMY BOTS! You're awful?" The Dummy Bots were fueled with some determination to prove Mad Dummy wrong as a whole slew of them showed up and fired at the Souls. It was enough that Frisk and Sora managed to loop some of the missiles into Mad Dummy this time, and it seemed to be a smidge more potent than the scribbles. This was evidenced by the fact that Mad Dummy was already progressively floating in distinct halves, nearly doing some kind of ska dance, but not quite. The Mad Dummy glared into a mirror, then turned to the humans with the same expression.

"DUMMY BOTS! FINAL ATTACK!" More like one Dummy Bot actually…at first anyways, as only one fired a missile while the little dummies that were fired decided to come back for one last round of turning red and bouncing off a wall to careen into the opposing one. As one could guess this was not easy to dodge all at once. Then another slew of Dummy Bots showed up and fired missiles, and Frisk and Sora expertly dodged and made them fly into Mad Dummy, who was losing its cool in a few ways.

"(N…no way!) (These guys are even WORSE than the other guys!) Who cares. Who cares! WHO CARES! ! I DON'T NEED FRIENDS! ! !" Mad Dummy shrilled and conjured a knife out of nowhere. "I'VE GOT KNIVES!" Mad Dummy threw the knife at the humans Souls, and they dodged it easily. Mad Dummy stopped hopping around and looked awfully bashful. "I'm…Out of knives." They went back to hopping mad. "BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER! ! ! YOU CAN'T HURT ME AND I CAN'T HURT EITHER OF YOU! YOU'LL BE STUCK FIGHTING ME…" They stopped hopping for one word, then progressively continued hopping until their halves were flying all over the place. "Forever. Forever! FOREVER! ! !" And laughed manically.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA-!" Mad Dummy was interrupted by drops of something. "Wh…What the heck is this!? Ergh! Acid rain!? Oh, FORGET IT! I'm outta here!" Mad Dummy finally relented and scooted off to the side and out of sight with the scowl still plastered to its face.

As it turned out, it was not acid rain that had hurt Mad Dummy, but in fact the only thing that could hurt it, a ghost taking a corporeal form…ghost tears. As Napstablook phased in to apologize.

"…sorry, I interrupted you, didn't I? as soon as I came over, your friend immediately left…oh no.. you guys looked like you were having fun…oh no…I just wanted to say hi…oh no…" Napstablook faded out from the white walled interface, but was still floating there before our heroes as soon as the white walls went away.

"Well…I'm going to head home now…oh…umm…feel free to 'come with' if you want… but no pressure…I understand if you're busy…it's fine…no worries…just thought I'd offer…" With that, he headed on into the next room. The gang followed, and found themselves in a lobby of sorts, as there were multiple paths and some save points. Napstablook had actually noticed that they followed him this far and decided that if they actually wanted to come with he could direct them to his house at the very least. "Hey…my house is up here…in case you all want to see…or in case…you don't…" Then Napstablook continued down the middle path across the way from the save point.

Since it was for the best, the gang saved before doing anything more. They all felt a calming tranquility. They're filled with determination.

Frisk then pulled out the cell phone and called Papyrus, for a very important and informational reason.

"HEY! YOU'RE NEAR UNDYNE'S HOUSE! THAT'S TO THE LEFT-UPWARDS. LUPWARDS. ALL THE OTHER DIRECTIONS GO TO THE WRONG HOUSE. NORTH: GHOST HOUSE. EAST: TURTLE HOUSE. SOUTH: TRASH HOUSE." Papyrus then hung up after having said his piece.

"You lead Frisk." Sora quipped cheerfully. Frisk turned to Sora and smiled at him, and promptly lead the group left just to show the gang the little bird that proudly gives a shortcut….for Frisk anyway. As Sora and the others, hopped the gap like they usually did to cheat the 'puzzle' and waited for Frisk and the little bird that carried them over the small gap with heroic sounding music coming from nowhere.

The shortcut lead right to the area where Sans had his telescope that gave them a black eye. Frisk went to the box to sort their inventory before they headed back across the gap, which Frisk took the offered flight of the small bird again while the others hopped across.

Then they went to the upper left path to see Undyne's house, it was half black and half white and looked like an angry fish or sea monster since it actually had a tail on the darker side of the house. No one was home, but there was a training dummy that could talk and judging by its tone, it was the Mad Dummy from before but calmed down….ish.

"What. What? WHAT!? It's a living."

Frisk pulled out the cell phone and called Papyrus. He picked up after two rings. He was loud enough for the others to hear.

"THAT'S UNDYNE'S HOUSE. LET'S GO THERE AND HANG OUT SOMEDAY!" Then he hung up since that was all he had to say on the matter.

There wasn't anything else to see here so they went back and on their way to Napstablook's house. They found two houses actually, but the pink one was locked so they went into the blue one instead and found Napstablook at his computer.

"oh….you really came…sorry, i….wasn't expecting that. it's not much, but make yourself at home." The ghost greeted.

Frisk, still leading the way went straight for the refrigerator. They pointed at it, not opening it since they were a guest.

"oh….are you hungry… i can get you something to eat…" With that Napstablook glided over to the fridge and took something out without even opening it. "this is a ghost sandwich…do you want to try it…"

Frisk and the others nodded vigorously, but as Frisk attempted to bite into it, they phased right through it…

"I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that, even though it probably should've been." Donald grumbled in his breath, not wanting to insult the already sensitive Napstablook. Thankfully the DJ ghost didn't seem to hear it because of his headphones.

"oh…nevermind…" Napstablook said dejectedly because the ghost sandwich couldn't be enjoyed. After a pregnant pause, the ghost came up with something else to do. "after a great meal i like to lie down and feel like garbage…it's a family tradition…do you want…to join me…?"

Again the gang nodded eagerly, wanting to do anything to make Napstablook happy…even a little bit.

"okay…follow my lead…" So they did, following the ghost to the center of the little abode and they all plopped down on their backs, and because of the tight quarters they circled up. "here we go…you'll lie down as long as you don't move. so…only move around when you want to get up, i guess."

Ten seconds later, they all could somehow see the cosmos, not even their cosmos specifically, just a generic cosmos of the universe outside of all the separated worlds as they could see galaxies as far as the eye could see and just felt relaxed and soothed. For Sora especially, it was like waves on a shore as the cosmos around them swayed rhythmically.

It was all so fascinating, but so soothing that they fell asleep again. They didn't scoot closer to each other to cuddle, not after the last time they tried napping.

* * *

_Sora opened his eyes again to darkness, but this time it wasn't like the darkness from when he himself turned into a heartless a year or so ago, this was more like the cavernous darkness of the Underground, just a part of it that he hadn't seen before…or yet as it still looked like Waterfall just by the still darkness and a long boardwalk bridge._

" _Yo." Came Monster Kid's voice. Sora blinked and saw three figures again, that of both Frisk's ghostly form, and Chara still looking more like Frisk and wasn't blinking to look like their true form, and of course, Monster Kid in front of the Chara controlled Frisk._

" _What in Sam Hill are we watching?" Came Donald's voice from Sora's right. Sora jumped at the suddenness of his voice as did the ghostly Frisk, as well unfortunately as the Chara controlled Frisk._

_Sora scrambled to cover Donald's beak and Goofy's mouth now that Sora noticed him on his left, Jiminy stayed quiet on top of Donald's head because he was so invested in what was going on. Ghost Frisk subtly turned to give the silent sign of shushing so the not quite memory dream thing could play out without Chara looking even crazier than they clearly already were._

" _Undyne told me to stay away from you. She said that you… You hurt a lot of people…. Monster Kid said dejectedly but in a way that they just couldn't believe it even as they said it and proved it in their next question. "But, yo, that's not true, right!?"_

_Ghost Frisk still seemed to have some control over their body as they forced Chara to turn away in what seemed like guilt and contemplation._

"… _yo… Why won't you answer me? A…a… And what's with that weird expression…?"_

_The trinity trio only got a glimpse of what Monster Kid was referring to before Ghost Frisk lost control again and hissed Chara's name in a pitiful attempt to get them to stop whatever they were about to do. In any case, the expression on the body of Frisk's possessed face was a creepy grin that sent shivers down all of their spines._

_Especially since Chara turned back to Monster Kid with an obvious intent to kill as they took a step forward, and Monster Kid took a step back._

" _Oh…Oh man…" Monster Kid said sounding panicked. Then they turned away and whispered to themselves, "Man, my h-heart's pounding right out of my chest…what would Undyne do?..." They then turned back around in a small burst of courage derived from thinking of Undyne. "Yo… Y-you'd b-better st-stop r-right where you are…'Cause if you w-wanna hurt anyone else…you're… You're gonna have to get through me, first. A…and…. and…"_

**And Monster Kid was in Chara's way, looking like free EXP with just an ATK and DEF of 2.**

_Just as Chara struck out at Monster Kid, Undyne came out of nowhere and took the hit. Without her helmet, the trinity trio witnessed for the first time that she really was a fish lady, with an eye patch over her left eye. The attack completely depleted her HP to zero, but she didn't turn to dust right away._

" _Undyne…You're… You're hurt…" Monster Kid choked out looking ready to cry since they themselves were obviously about to die and now their hero was hurt really badly._

" _Hurt? It's nothing." Undyne replied encouragingly even through the pain. "Next time, listen when I tell you to leave, okay?"_

" _Undyne… I…" Monster Kid whimpered guiltily._

" _I'll take care of this! Get out of here!" She ordered, and Monster Kid didn't hesitate on following that order._

_As soon as they were out of sight, Undyne was now struggling to keep her form from turning into dust as her feet waivered in staying whole._

"… _heh… 'It's nothing'…No…s-somehow…with just one hit…I'm already… Already…D…damn it…" The wavering of her feet pulsated faster even though she continued. "Papyrus…Alphys…_ Asgore _… Just like that, I… I've failed you." The wavering ran up her whole body, threatening to turn her into dust._

_But somehow…_ **She stayed Determined** _**.** _

"… _No… My body… It feels like it's splitting apart." She admitted in pain, as the wavering moved back down her and pulsated from the waist down. "Like any instant… I'll scatter into a million pieces. But…Deep, deep in my soul. There's a burning feeling I can't describe."_

That's determination alright _, the trinity trio and the real Frisk thought._

" _A burning feeling that_ WON'T _let me die." Undyne smiled at the thought and it sparked back her inner strength but a sudden thought occurred to her about the human situation. "This isn't just about monsters anymore, is it? If you get past me, you'll… You'll destroy them all, won't you? Monsters…Humans… Everyone…."_

_The real Frisk flinched at this line but it went unnoticed._

" _Everyone's hopes. Everyone's dreams. Vanquished in an instant. But I_ WON'T _let you do that." Undyne smiled again. "Right now, everyone in the world…" She opened her good eye and the colors were a reverse pallet of what they had once saw. "I can feel their hearts beating as one. And we all have_ ONE _goal. To defeat_ YOU _. Human. No,_ WHATEVER _you are. For the sake of the whole world…_ I, UNDYNE, will strike you down! _" Her whole body suddenly wavered but only for the sake of her growing determination. When she reformed again, she was whole, no lingering wavers, but her armor had changed into something that looked tougher, despite hearts being a main motif on her chest plate and gloves, and even her voice sounded slightly otherworldly._

" _You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT." She cajoled. A laser beam was constantly shooting out of her eye-patched eye and she was labeled as Undyne the Undying, the heroine reformed by her own_ **DETERMINATION** _to save Earth. With 99 ATK and DEF it was obvious that she would be tough, but not as tough as Sans._

" _This is earlier in that bad timeline, isn't it Frisk?" Sora inquired finally, since Chara was too busy fighting to bother to pay them any mind, and released Donald and Goofy from the forced shushing hold._

" _Yeah, it is. No matter how hard I tried, as soon as Chara started I could never stop them. And as soon as Undyne is finished, its easy pickings to Chara until the fight with Sans at the end." Frisk explained sadly._

_Before Donald, Goofy, or Jiminy could even begin to make a comment, Chara had already brought Undyne's HP to zero, again._

" _Damn it… So even_ THAT _power… It wasn't enough…? ...Heh… Heheheh…" Undyne chuckled weakly and then broke into a huge grin. "If you… If you think I'm gonna give up hope, you're wrong. 'Cause I've got my friends behind me." Her big grin lessened into a smirk and she was sweating profusely but continued nonetheless. "Alphys told me that she would watch me fight you… And if anything went wrong, she would evacuate everyone. By now she's called_ Asgore _and told him to absorb the_ six _human_ Souls _."_

" _He won't." Frisk quipped._

" _And with that power…" Undyne continued, and started to literally melt as the Determination was giving way. "This world will live on…!" Her melted body was worse, but at least she'd go with that huge grin on her face._

**Then she became dust.**

_And thankfully it was enough to startle the gang to wake up before Chara could properly react to their presence._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait and the shortness, I mostly wanted to get SOMETHING out for this here 2nd anniversary of Undertale.  
> And no, sorry again, the surprise I had in store is actually going to be in the next chapter for sure.


End file.
